If you’ve always thought of FIFA, the international body responsible for the integrity of the world’s most popular sport, as a bundle of contradictions and double standards, this is a story for you.
Oddly enough, it involves two South American plants, yerba mate and coca, each with a deep history, and both exceedingly popular to this day, employed by millions as natural stimulants, similar to coffee and tea, only far better for one’s health, nutrition and well-being.
As Argentina takes the field against France in the final match of the World Cup, odds are that most of the players — not to mention coaches, trainers, managers, and wives — will be hopped up on mate, their national drink, brewed from the leaves and stems of Ilex paraguariensis, rich in both caffeine and theobromine, the drug that gives a lift to chocolate.
Throughout the tournament, consumption has been high, among both the Argentine contingent and a handful of their French opponents, international stars such as Paul Pogba, introduced to mate years ago by one of his Manchester United teammates, a player from La Plata, Marcos Rojo. Everyone, it seems, loves mate.
Anticipating demand, team Argentina took no chances, arriving in Qatar with some 1100 pounds of leaves, twice the supply imported by Uruguay, a nation equally enamoured of the plant. Argentina clearly was confident of its chances in the tournament, and thus the duration of a stay in an Islamic nation with zero tolerance and severe sanctions for anyone found using illicit drugs.
As Lionel Messi and his mates stepped off their team bus — mate implements in hand-small silver rimmed gourds, silver straws, thermoses of hot water — publicists for FIFA scrambled to inform anyone who would listen that mate was not a drug, just a tea, albeit with something of a kick. Pope Francis, a true son of Argentina, is known to relish the beverage, an unassailable endorsement of a purely benign preparation.
