“Dangerous people from Argentina have just arrived and you need to leave,” read the text on the man’s phone.
As the football fan spoke no English, he’d improvised and used Google Translate to deliver the warning to my colleague and me: England fans were not welcome at the Argentina fan pre-World Cup 2026 semi-final party.
Before big games for the national team, it’s traditional for the South American supporters to have a ‘Banderazo’ — a pregame party where they drink beers, have a barbecue, and, most importantly, dance around singing with flags.
The venue in Atlanta was an outdoor, amphitheatre-type shopping complex called The Underground. Thousands of blue-and-white-shirted Argentinian fans packed into the brown-bricked bowl, waving Maradona and Messi flags.
Pouring rain had done little to dampen spirits, and the crowd bounced to the rhythms of a group of drummers without a break.
The atmosphere was electric with constant singing and jumping, as well as choreographed displays of giant flags.
And while total strangers were more than happy to wrap arms around total strangers’ shoulders, it was clear that, maybe as an Englishman, I wasn’t quite as welcome.
Amongst the pictures of Maradona smoking a cigar and Lionel Messi lifting the World Cup were flags claiming the Falkland Islands—which Britain famously went to war with the South Americans over in the 1980s—as their own.
Then there was the singing. Many of the crowd’s favourite songs, not unlike those in Scotland, have us as the butt of the joke. “He who doesn’t jump is an Englishman” was a particular favourite of the crowd.
But to put the positive pre-match vibes to the test and to get involved in what looked like some pretty fun dancing around, my colleague and I snuck into the crowd with a Three Lions jersey tucked under a vintage Maradona shirt.
It’s fair to say the security for the event was tight. Armed police patrolled the walkways and vantage points of the amphitheatre and shouted aggressively for people to “get down” each time someone stood on a wall.
There was no way we could get into the crowd and then make a quick exit, so we’d have to rely on either the Argentinians being friendly or the police helping us out. Given the officers seemed rather bad-tempered and the fans quite rowdy, I wasn’t hopeful of either.
So, as the rain cleared some space in the crowd, we took our chance and made it to the centre.
In order for all three levels of Argentinians to get a good view of my Three Lions shirt, we decided I should be raised aloft with my replica World Cup trophy, Bobby Moore style.
As soon as I whipped off my Maradona shirt, there were gasps from the people around me.
A woman wagged her finger. “No, no,” she called.
The reaction when I was lifted up was even more feisty. “You can’t do this,” a bearded man shouted as two young lads flipped the middle finger at me.
A topless man then joined the bearded bloke in telling us we “shouldn’t be doing this.” But as the crowd noticed us, he pushed my colleague, holding me aloft, and the crowd started bouncing around us.
Most of it was very good-humoured, and, while there were plenty of people swearing, many more were smiling and dancing around us.
We started getting jostled, and as is normal when you have a replica trophy, people started trying to grab it out of my hands.
As more joined the pogo dancing around us, I did my best to join in. However, we were being pushed back and the rowdiness levels began to escalate.
The crowd was chanting one of their favourites: “He who doesn’t jump is an Englishman.” Given that we were in the thick of it, giving it plenty of energy, I thought it was a bit of an unfair comment.
It was when we started getting told to “fk off” and “you need to get out of here for your safety” that we decided to cut our losses and make an exit.
I dropped to the ground and moved under one of the big flags. It was as we caught our breath that the man with a Google Translate message approached my colleague, warning about dangerous people from Argentina arriving. So, with that, we left.
It was fun, a bit feisty, but ultimately great banter.
Experiencing a Banderazo up close was pretty special, and being the sole England fan in a crowd of passionate Argentina fans was completely unique.