With their own football team being “pretty lousy”, Bangladeshis have taken to supporting Argentina’s instead, says Daniel Taylor in The Athletic. Even if matches are played in the middle of the night in local time, tens of thousands of them will throng the streets to show their support. Rows of apartment blocks in the capital Dhaka are festooned in Argentina’s national colours of sky blue and white. You can even get an “Argentina-themed rickshaw” if you fancy a ride on a seat decorated with the image of their star player, Lionel Messi.
Argentinians have noticed this love their footballers are getting and reciprocated – a Facebook group for Argentinian fans of Bangladesh’s cricket team has more than 160,000 members. El Destape, a Buenos Aires-based media site, covered their win in a recent match over India, cheerily announcing: “From Argentina, we congratulate Bangladesh for this tremendous victory.”