"In Messi we trust" isn't just a slogan for Miloslav Urbanec — it's painted on his van, alongside a portrait of Maradona lifting the World Cup, parked outside a three-storey house in rural Czech Republic that looks like it was airlifted from Buenos Aires.
Urbanec, 51, lives in Bukovka, a village 90 kilometres east of Prague, and has spent decades turning his home into a full Argentina shrine. The exterior is painted sky-blue and white. A life-size Maradona statue guards the courtyard. A Messi mural covers the back wall. A sun emblem — the central motif of the Argentine flag — sits high above it all. Out back, an all-weather pitch is ringed with images of Boca Juniors players.
It started with Mario Kempes's hair
"As a four-year old kid I watched the 1978 World Cup in Argentina with my father, and I completely loved the long hair of the Argentine players like Kempes," Urbanec said. "They won the World Cup — that was the start of my passion for Argentina, Boca Juniors, for everything about football."
That passion never dimmed. Seven years ago, when his second son was born, the name was never in doubt. He called him Lionel. "It was clear," Urbanec said, "that this guy is absolutely special."
Hard to argue with the logic, even if the paperwork at the Bukovka registry office probably raised an eyebrow or two.
"100 per cent" confident
Argentina face Cape Verde in the round of 32 on July 3, and Urbanec isn't entertaining doubt. "La Seleccion this time is absolutely amazing," he said. "I believe 100 per cent we will win again and it will be a beautiful party — not only in Bukovka, around the world, because Argentina play the most beautiful football."
Whether Argentina deliver on that confidence is a question the bookmakers are already pricing up. But for one music promoter in the Czech countryside, the outcome feels like a formality. The mural is already painted. The statue is already standing. All Argentina have to do is win.
