By Caitlin Stephen Hu, Sol Amaya, CNN
(CNN) — You wake up nervous. Try the comfort of a lucky shirt, maybe the same one you were wearing last time your team won. Grimace and nod through meetings; your eye is on the clock. Finally it’s kick off. Ugh. The dread only rises. Wait a second — was the World Cup supposed to be fun?
As Argentina and Spain prepare to face off for the championship title this Sunday, supporters on both sides are going through it.
“I’ve been trembling for a few days now honestly,” 23-year-old Bárbara Laura told CNN in central Madrid, ahead of the match. “If they lose, then I’ll cry on the curb. I won’t have any choice but to open a bottle of rum, drink it straight and cry.”
“So much is at stake, so much of one’s mood is on the line,” says Pablo Nigro, president of the Argentine Sport Psychology Association. “It’s like we all feel we are playing, and that raises our expectations. The team doesn’t just lose; we all lose, and we lose in a way that is, I would say, raw and painful.”
Angst is part of the World Cup experience for true fans, even beyond game day. As Freud put it, “We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.”
More than a month into the start of the tournament, one Italian friend still feels bitter over the fate of his beloved Azzurri, who didn’t qualify this year. “Now witnessing the World Cup without them is extra painful. It feels numb and I kind of hate seeing all my international friends cheering for their teams,” he says.
Don’t even bring it up with the English, many of whom still can’t talk about Wednesday’s last-minute loss – though one fan did confide that he feels relief when England exit a tournament just so that he can get off the emotional rollercoaster.
For those truly struggling with the emotional toll of the game, consider taking a page from Argentina, a country whose love of soccer is perhaps only rivaled by its passion for psychoanalysis. According to one oft-cited statistic from the World Health Organization, Argentina boasts 222 psychologists per every 100,000 people, compared to 30 in the US, and 48 in France. CNN spoke to several, many of them ardent football fans themselves.
‘If it’s not suffering, it’s not Argentina’
Argentina has suffered this World Cup, through a series of cliffhanger matches. La Albiceleste seemed to barely escape early bouts with Cape Verde and Switzerland, scraping by in extra time. It made fans sweat again during Wednesday’s semi-final with England, waiting until the final few minutes to score.
The day after that match, the front page of Buenos Aires newspaper La Nación hinted at frayed nerves, describing sleepless nights and Spain being “already on the mind.” But suffering – and the resilience that comes from working through it – are part of Argentine culture.
Nigro says athletes plagued by anxiety are trained to work on relaxation and visualization techniques, which grant the feeling of control – though he notes that nerves also “activate” players in a way that can up their game on the pitch.
He has different advice for armchair participants dealing with heart palpitations just thinking about the match, noting that breathwork and positive thinking are unlikely to help a die-hard fan in the throes of anticipation.
“When people call me and ask about their anxiety, I recommend focusing their thinking to the wider moment: The fact that we are living this situation is also a privilege. Not just the 90 or 120 minutes of the match on Sunday, but the fact that we are about to play a final at all.”
He also urges patients to recognize the fellowship of fandom. “To see the person next to you in a wonderful state, seeing them in the national jersey on the way to work, or walking down the street and seeing the flag. Those are small things that on Monday or Tuesday – whether we win or lose – will be gone.”
During the match itself, he says, it’s a good idea to try to physically dispel some energy – if you haven’t already leapt to your feet or started shouting at the screen.
“If you are very nervous, go for a walk, do little jumps, try to do something that takes away a bit of that tension from something that is impossible not to experience. During the match, you will be nervous from minute one to… well, minute 90. I mean, you will be nervous, and this is something you have to anticipate.”
And then are the superstitions. Desperate for something to do, many Argentina fans turn toward witchcraft: On World Cup match days, one CNN colleague’s family puts anything related to the opposing team in the freezer: Swiss chocolates for the match against Switzerland, a beloved Beatles album when England became the adversary.
Others insist on sitting in the exact same spot where they watched previous victories; when Argentina is down, even television sports commentators will urge viewers to try changing their seats to reverse the team’s luck.
“In a way, we are trying to control the uncontrollable – that if I do these rites, at least I lower my anxiety a bit, feeling that I am contributing my grain of sand for the team to win,” says Nigro.
And while Argentina’s culture of talk therapy may turn psychic suffering into words on the therapist’s couch, fans may be reassured that the pros are trained to translate their nerves into strategy on the pitch.
“Once you pull on that jersey and walk onto the pitch, you begin to master the stress,” Argentine sports psychology expert Jorge Rocco says. When Argentina faced England, they used the energy created from early suffering to reclaim the match, he says.
“I was watching the game with a Spaniard and I told him, ‘I hope England scores a goal.’ And he asks me why. Because the first minutes played out like a game of chess. The teams studied each other, no one took risks.
“But Argentina began to play another game once, emotionally, they said, ‘(England) can’t have what is ours.’”
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
Reporting contributed by Sarah Hutter.
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