In the unheated cinema of the Olivos presidential residence, Javier Milei felt the warmth become stifling. It was the quarter-final against Switzerland, and Argentina was in control. He peeled off the thick jacket bearing the logo of the state oil company YPF. Almost immediately, the Swiss scored. Milei yanked the jacket back on and, as he later told a Buenos Aires radio station, has not removed it since. The garment, he explained, had become a cábalas — a good-luck charm — and under no circumstances would he break the ritual now.

That ritual extends to his location. On Sunday, when Argentina faces Spain in the World Cup final at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, the Argentine president will not be in the stands alongside Donald Trump and King Felipe VI. He will remain in Olivos, exactly where he has watched every match of the tournament. “No way,” he replied when asked if he would travel. The superstition is not merely personal; it is presidential. No sitting Argentine leader has attended a national team match since Carlos Menem visited the squad before a shock opening loss to Cameroon in 1990 and was branded a mufa, a jinx. Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist who took office in late 2023, is adhering to a tradition that transcends ideology.

Across Argentina, such cábalas are not eccentricities but a parallel match played out in living rooms, kitchens, and bars. Fans wear the same unwashed jerseys for weeks, refuse to shift from the spot where they sat when a goal was scored, or banish relatives whose presence coincided with a conceded goal. In one widely shared video from this tournament, a group began reading the Bible just as Argentina scored against Egypt; they have repeated the reading at every game since. A sociologist quoted by the Agence France-Presse noted that Argentines do not see themselves as mere spectators but as participants who can influence the outcome by warding off bad luck or locking in good fortune. The smallest actions — a dog turned to face the television, a mother-in-law exiled to the kitchen to knit a blue-and-white scarf — are freighted with consequence.

The most common ritual aimed at opponents involves the freezer. Supporters print out photographs of rival players or scribble their names on slips of paper and place them in the icebox, a practice passed down through generations. An 11-year-old fan in Buenos Aires told reporters that his grandfather taught him to freeze the image of the opposing star. As the final approaches, freezers across the country are likely filling with the names of Spanish footballers, a quiet, domestic counter-offensive waged with frost and faith.

In Olivos, Milei will watch the match in the cinema with his sister and chief of staff, Karina, the YPF jacket still on. Outside, the Southern Hemisphere winter will bite, but inside, the heating will remain off — not out of austerity, but because the ritual demands it. The jacket, he said, has not come off since that Swiss goal. It will not come off now.