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“What can I play so I get to sing the Argentine anthem on a field?” That was the question Rodrigo Miquelarena asked Argentine Alternative Sports Committee founder Ricardo Acuña in 2009.
Lacrosse was the answer, and just a year later, Miquelarena was standing alongside United States-based players of Argentine descent, part of a team that represented Argentina at the 2010 World Lacrosse Championship. He’d be back for two more World Cups, in 2014 and then again in 2018, where they achieved their first win, beating Hungary 14-6.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic put a hold on any developments, and any progress the sport had made in the country over the years was lost. With lacrosse appearing as an Olympic sport once again at Los Angeles 2028, a group of coaches from Argentina and the U.S. are working to see the sport flourish again.
The Herald attended the Argentina Lacrosse relaunch tournament in December 2024 to discuss how it all started and what the future holds.
Cut-up bottles and broomsticks
Lacrosse first arrived in Argentina with Acuña, who started a small league at the turn of the century in the year 2000. Yet, things only began to move forward in 2009, when he inspired Miquelarena and others to take up the sport.
With lacrosse in that moment at an early expansion to a worldwide audience, tournaments had no qualification stage. The team took advantage of this and simply showed up to play, traveling around the world representing Argentina.
At first, the team trained with cut-up bottles stuck at the end of broomsticks, an artisanal solution put together by Acuña. Getting their hands on better equipment proved very difficult.
With Lacrosse very much a niche sport in Argentina, sport-specific sticks and balls aren’t found in regular sports equipment stores in the country. Thus, the team had to resort to buying them abroad to find the materials to train and compete at the top level.
They had to learn the hard way as to which brands and retailers they could trust to get good quality items. Even when everything was ordered and in place, they still had to get the equipment through Argentine Customs.
“We had become the kings of smuggling to get the equipment. You couldn’t import many things at the time, and the regulations were quite changeable,” Miquelarena said.
Making friends with Argentines living abroad during tournaments opened channels to acquire the correct materials to train and improve. Many brought equipment with them when they visited their families overseas, as did members of other teams who traveled abroad to play.
“That network has grown so much that, although there is never enough, every kid who starts to play always has something to play with,” said Miquelarena.
‘There’s so much talent here’
The COVID-19 pandemic slowed down developments in Argentina, with many local tournaments coming to an abrupt halt after lockdown measures were introduced. That’s why women’s national team head coach Nicolás Prandi pushed for a relaunch tournament in Buenos Aires.
Prandi was one of those Argentines living abroad who joined the team. He took up lacrosse in 2002 when his family moved to New York after the economic crisis of 2001, and went on to play at a high school and college levels. It was then when an aunt asked him if he’d heard about the Argentine national team. Eager to unite with his fellow countrymen, he represented Argentina in the 2014 World Cup in Denver and Israel in 2018. Following that, he undertook the challenge of building and coaching a women’s national team.
The relaunch tournament was held in December 2024 and featured training camps for those interested in starting to play. Argentina Lacrosse also invited teams from neighboring countries, which featured a notably strong presence of Brazilian players at the event.
“The objective is to play a lacrosse tournament in the country, have a workout for local players, and a tryout,” he said. “We want to win back players, attract new ones, and attract people who might be interested.”
The team plans further events across 2025 with the same objective. They also have plenty of competition coming up, with both the men’s and women’s teams taking part in the 2025 Heritage Cup, a tournament featuring teams of all ages from 36 nations. The competition will take place from May 23 through 26, in Boston, Massachusetts.
The teams are made of both players born in Argentina and of Argentine descent
Photo: Argentina Lacrosse
Carl Starkey, the Argentine men’s national team head coach, thinks Argentina has a high ceiling in lacrosse.
“There’s so much talent here, so much excitement, and the culture is very strong,” he told the Herald.
Starkey, a former professional player from the U.S., has coached internationally in Germany, Czechia, and Hungary. He first became involved with lacrosse in Argentina through his wife, Lynn Farquhar, the field hockey head coach at Syracuse University.
“She has been recruiting in Argentina for decades. I would come here and translate for her, and we just fell in love with the culture,” he said.
After the pandemic, Argentina Lacrosse contacted Starkey as part of the resurgence push. He admits he was impressed with how big of a footprint lacrosse has in Argentina despite being an alternative sport.
“There’s a lot of talent going, it just needs a little bit of that organization and a little bit of that spark to build the excitement and the awareness,” he said. “I think the Olympics really is going to do a good job of building that focus.”
Olympic dreams
For the first time in over 120 years, lacrosse is set to be part of the Olympic Games in LA 2028. For the sport in Argentina, it represents a golden opportunity.
A large portion of the men’s team grew up in the U.S. and are playing at college level. They are mainly descendants of Argentines who have moved abroad or moved when they were children.
Starkey admits the timing and schedules in getting the squad together can sometimes be challenging, but he adds that there is also a sense of excitement when it happens.
“We play event to event, so we’ll show up maybe two or three days before, get the guys together, and then we’ll play in that event,” he said. “When you put Argentina across your chest, it means something. They get to play for their family and for their heritage.”
While the men’s team hasn’t made another appearance at the World Championships, the women’s team has taken significant steps since its inception in 2019.
In 2022, they managed their first two field lacrosse victories at the World Championship in Towson. The team plays ‘Sixes’ — a different variant of lacrosse — and won two Pan-American Lacrosse Association Sixes Cups bronze medals in 2021 and 2023.
Still, LA 2028 may come too soon for Argentina, as a lot depends on how the tournaments will be set up.
“There will be six or eight teams competing, but we don’t know how they will qualify,” said Prandi. “If teams from North and South America qualify separately, we have a good chance of getting in. If America is taken as a single continent, it is much more difficult because the USA, Canada, and Puerto Rico are very good.”
The Peruvian Federation is pushing to include the sport in the 2027 Pan American Games, giving Argentina a great opportunity to play at a higher level sooner to see how they can perform before any talk of the Olympic Games. Starkey thinks that’s beyond the point, however.
“We are going to prepare ourselves so when our name is called, we’ll be ready to go,” he said. “We’re doing what we must do right now to put ourselves in that position.”
For lacrosse in Argentina, regrowing the sport is the main objective. Before thoughts of medals and podiums arise, the imperative from the various figures in the sport is to organize more tournaments, expand the player base, and to get the sport out there to a wider audience. Then others may ask themselves the same question that Miquelarena did in 2009.
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