Tariq Panja

They feel their passions have been exploited and they feel kind of abused.

And to that point,

I decided to go to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, to try and put a human face to this.

Because in my experience, in the last three, four World Cups I've been to, one of the most eye-catching backdrops of these tournaments have been the sheer number of Argentines who...

Find a way to get to the World Cup and to make it a World Cup with flags, with songs, with atmosphere.

The fans are protagonists from the stands in the way the players are on the field.

And I thought...

This must be impossible for these people who are so obsessed with the World Cup to face ticket prices like this.

What are they going to do?

So, you know, I went to an asada or a barbecue of Argentine fans preparing to go to the World Cup at a park in Buenos Aires.

To get a sense of the extremes, there's a guy I met called Matias Celestino.

He is so obsessed with Argentina.

He went to every single one of their qualifying games.

So they played games across South America.

He went to 18 matches, nine in Argentina, nine abroad.

overseas, as far away as Venezuela, all across the region, to be there for Argentina and to hammer his drum, to beat his drum in support of this team.

But this is the first World Cup, he said, that he's taking his wife and son to.

And she could not get time off work.

So guess what she did?

She's quit her job.