Argentina Sports – The 10 Most Popular Sports in Argentina
Wondering what sports the Argentines like to play?
Discover everything about the most popular sports in Argentina in this post. ⚽️
The Most Popular Argentina Sports
Find below Argentina national sports, ranked by popularity:
| Rank | Sport |
|---|---|
| 1 | Football |
| 2 | Auto racing |
| 3 | Basketball |
| 4 | Rugby |
| 5 | Tennis |
| 6 | Field hockey |
| 7 | Boxing |
| 8 | Polo |
| 9 | Golf |
| 10 | Volleyball |
So there you have them, the most popular sports of Argentina! Keep reading below for more information about each sport in Argentina.
What is the National Sport in Argentina?
The national sport in Argentina is football. Everyone in Argentina plays football, from children during their school breaks to adults during the evenings and the weekends. There are tons of indoor and outdoor fields all around the country, so football is very accessible in Argentina.
There are two Argentine legendary football players who are the pride of their country: Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona.
Learn More About Argentina Popular Sports
Argentina is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, and it is located in the southern part of South America. Its capital city is Buenos Aires, which counts more than 2,891,000 inhabitants (but almost 15,600,000 if you include the metropolitan area!).
An interesting part of the country that I wanted to tackle is its most popular sports. In light of that, I have listed the 10 popular Argentina sports, and I hope you will love them:
Football
Football is by far the most popular sport in Argentina. As said before, it is also the national sport of Argentina. Everyone, from kids to adults, plays and watches football very often. There are fields all around the country for everyone.
One of the main reasons why this sport is so popular is that there are Argentine legends: Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona are some of the best players in the history of football.
The Argentine National Team is also very reputed since it has won the World Cup twice, in 1978 and in 1986.
Number of Football licensed players in Argentina: 331,811
Famous Argentine Football players: Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Alfredo Di Stefano, Mario Alberto Kempes, Juan Roman Riquelme
Auto racing
The second sport on this list is very different from the first one: auto racing is followed by a hefty amount of fans in Argentina. It is very varied, as it includes everything from Rallying to Formula One.
The greatest Formula One driver of all time is widely said to be Juan Manuel Fangio, an Argentine legend. He won the Formula One world championship 5 times, with 4 different teams. Also, he won 102 of the 184 international races he has participated in.
Famous Argentine Auto racing players: Juan Manuel Fangio, Oscar Alfredo Gálvez, Juan Gálvez, José Froilán González, Carlos Reutemann
Basketball
The third most popular sport in Argentina is basketball. While basketball is not as popular as football, it is still very widely appreciated in the provinces of the country.
There is a national basketball league, called Liga Nacional de Básquet. Also, Argentina won the first World Championship in 1950. However, the sport did not become quite popular until the beginning of the 21st century, when the country won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Women’s basketball is still not professional in Argentina, but despite this, the national team reached 9th place at the 2006 FIBA World Championship for Women.
Famous Argentine Basketball players: Luis Scola, Carlos Delfino, Andrés Nocioni, Pablo Prigioni, Fabricio Oberto
Rugby
The fourth most popular sport in Argentina is rugby union. This one is a bit peculiar since it is mostly an amateur sport. However, just like the women’s basketball team, the Argentine national rugby team finished third in the 2007 Rugby World Cup. They have defeated every tier 1 rugby nation at least once.
The nickname of the Argentine rugby team is the “Pumas”. The best Argentine rugby players have been emigrating to Europe throughout the decades, especially to England and France.
Number of Rugby licensed players in Argentina: 110,000
Famous Argentine Rugby players: Marcos Ayerza, Mario Ledesma, Omar Hasan, Ignacio Fernández Lobbe, Pedro Sporleder
Tennis
The fifth most popular sport in Argentina is tennis. Ever since the 1970s, tennis has been popular among people of all ages in Argentina. After Gabriela Sabatini and Guillermo Vilas reached the number 2 position worldwide (no Argentine player has ever reached the #1 position for now) and won several Grand Slams, tennis became even more popular.
When it comes to teams, Argentina has won the World Team Cup four times, in 1980, 2002, 2007, and 2010, as well as the 2016 Davis Cup.
Famous Argentine Tennis players: David Nalbandian, Gaston Gaudio, Juan Martin Del Potro, Gabriela Sabatini, Guillermo Vilas
Field hockey
The sixth most popular sport in Argentina is field hockey. Field hockey is most popular because of the women’s national team in fact. And while this is quite rare, it is very deserved, since “Las Leonas” is one of the most successful teams in the world: they won 2 World Cups, 1 World League, 7 Champions Trophy and 4 Olympics medals.
On top of that, Luciana Aymar is widely considered the best female player in the history of the sport, having received the Player of the Year Award 8 times!
The national men’s team is absolutely not bad either since they won the gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics, as well as the bronze medal at the 2014 World Cup.
Famous Argentine Field hockey players: Luciana Aymar, Noel Barrionuevo, Delfina Merino, Carla Rebecchi, Florencia Habif
Boxing
The seventh most popular Argentina sport is boxing. The reason why this sport is so popular is that there are many Argentine legends, like Pascual Pérez (the first Argentine world boxing champion), Horacio Accavallo, and Santos Laciar.
There are many categories in boxing, but Argentine sportsmen and sportswomen have been on top of all of them many times. For instance, Victor Galindez won the Light-Heavyweight title, Jorge Castro was the World Middleweight champion and Marcela Acuña was a world champion female boxer.
Famous Argentine Boxing players: Pascual Pérez, Carlos Monzón, Horacio Accavallo, Santos Laciar, Juan Martín Coggi, Nicolino Locche
Polo
The eighth most popular sport in Argentina is polo. The story of polo in Argentina is very old. The country won its first Olympic gold medal in 1924, and its second one in 1936.
Currently, many Argentine players (like Adolfo Cambiaso, Gonzalo Pieres, or Facundo Pieres) are ranked amongst the best polo players in the world.
On top of that, the three most popular polo tournaments on the planet, the Argentine Open, the Hurlingham Open, and the Tortugas Open, are held in Argentina.
Number of Polo licensed players in Argentina: 5,000
Famous Argentine Polo players: Adolfo Cambiaso, Gonzalo Pieres, Facundo Pieres, the Novillo Astrada brothers
Golf
The ninth most popular sport in Argentina is golf. José Jurado is the prime example and representative of Argentine golf. He was one of the best golf players in South America, and the first Argentine to travel to major international championships. For that, he is widely considered the “Father of Argentine Professional Golf”.
Following his success, many great Argentine golf players rose throughout the years, like Roberto De Vicenzo, Eduardo Romero, and Antonio Cerdá.
Famous Argentine Golf players: José Jurado, Roberto De Vicenzo, Antonio Cerdá, José Cóceres, Eduardo Romero
Volleyball
The tenth most popular sport in Argentina is volleyball. While it is only ranked tenth on this list, volleyball still has a decent place among Argentine sports. It has a professional male league.
The most notable achievements from the Argentina national volleyball team are 2 bronze medals, at the Summer Olympics, and at the World Championship, but the team is still quite often ranked among the top 10 national teams on the planet.
There are also beach volleyball teams in Argentina, and they competed in the Beach Volley Continental Cup in both the men’s and the women’s sections.
So there you have them, these were the 10 Argentina popular sports. I hope you enjoyed them and that you learned something new today.
In case you want to learn more about sports in other countries, feel free to keep reading, as I still have lots of things to tell you about:
More Sport Facts!
Loved these Argentina sports facts? Want to see what sports are the most popular in other countries?
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