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Magalí Martínez knew something was off: The seemingly invincible star Lionel Messi was scuffling on the soccer pitch. To her, it looked like he was afflicted with a supernatural curse that has roots in different cultures across history, the “evil eye.”
So Martínez, a self-proclaimed witch and part-time babysitter, got to work. She focused intensely on Messi, began repeating a prayer and drizzled a bit of oil into a bowl of water. If the oil remained dispersed, he was safe. If it collected in the middle, he was cursed.
“It came together like a magnet,” she said. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to cure him alone.”
She went to Twitter and called on her fellow witches across Argentina. “Evil-eye healing sisters, Messi is very affected,” she said. “I need your help.”
A thousand people shared her tweet, with many saying they, too, were witches and would work to protect Argentina’s golden boy.
Argentina has not lost since.
The bookkeepers have set their odds, gamblers have placed their bets and the experts have made their picks for Sunday’s World Cup final between Argentina and France, but their analysis of the matchup — focused on just the 22 players on the field — might not be considering a wild card: Argentina’s army of witches.
In recent weeks, hundreds, if not thousands of Argentine women who call themselves “brujas,” or witches, have taken up arms — in the form of prayers, altars, candles, amulets and burning sage — to protect their nation’s beloved soccer team in its quest to secure a developing nations Cup title and its first in 36 years.
“We think of ourselves as agents that, from love, can take care, protect and sow happiness,” said Rocío Cabral Menna, 27, a witch and high school teacher in Messi’s hometown, Rosario, who burns a bay leaf inscribed with her predicted score in a ceremony before each match. The players are competing on the field, she said, and at home, “the witches are taking care of them.”
The trend caught fire after Argentina’s shocking loss to Saudi Arabia in the opening match, causing Argentines to search for any way to help the team on which this nation of 47 million has pitted its hopes.
After that match, several witches started a WhatsApp group to instruct other witches on how to help the national team. They called it the Argentine Association of Witches, or La Brujineta, a play on “bruja” and “La Scaloneta,” Argentina’s nickname for its national team.
“I thought there were going to be 10 people at most,” said the group’s founder, Antonella Spadafora, 23, a witch who runs a convenience store in a city in northwest Argentina. Within days, more than 300 people had joined the group. Last week, there was so much demand that they started a Twitter account. It has gained 25,000 followers in seven days.
“We got tired of being closet witches,” said Andrea Maciel, 28, a witch and graphic designer in Buenos Aires who helps manage the group.
