Singing the Dutch national anthem at the top of her lungs, an orange soccer scarf draped around her neck, Queen Máxima of the Netherlands looked every inch the patriot when she cheered on Holland in the World Cup’s first round.
But the royal’s true loyalties will be tested Wednesday when the Dutch team plays her native Argentina in the semifinals in São Paulo.
As a result, die-hard fans of both Argentina and Holland have been reveling in the so-called “Máxima Dilemma.”
The moment the game was announced, the Internet was flooded with doctored photos poking fun at the Buenos Aires-born blonde and her blue-blooded hubby, King Willem-Alexander from the land of cheese and tulips.
One has the couple lying in bed facing away from each other, looking annoyed, as if they’ve been arguing. Another shows their rural mansion draped in two different flags.
“If it’s true that Máxima will be rooting for Holland, she will have a hard time walking the streets of Buenos Aires again without being booed,” Argentina-born Ximena Diego, 44, of Brooklyn, tells The Post.
Fellow Argentine Sergio Stabio, 46, a Manhattanite, wonders: “Should Argentina win, will that drive a wedge between her and King Charming?”
And Holland fanatic Friso van Reesema, 38, of Old Greenwich, Conn., quips, “If the Argentinians really need her support, then they’re truly at a loss.”
The 43-year-old mother of three has kept quiet in the run-up to the game.
The last time Holland faced Argentina, at the 2006 World Cup, the Argentine press branded the queen a traitor for declaring, “I’m interested in Argentina, but my nationality is Dutch.” After Holland’s victory over Australia in the opening round, Queen Máxima (a naturalized Dutch citizen since 2001) visited the team’s dressing room. (The royals aren’t expected at the semifinal match.)
“I think she’s very entitled to support Argentina in the privacy of her house,” says Loura Zijdel- Eelkema, director of NYC-area Dutch language school ’t Klokhuis. “But she is the Dutch queen, so, in front of everyone, she has to be in favor of Holland.”
Then again, Máxima, a former investment banker who met then-Crown Prince Willem-Alexander in 1999, is no stranger to friction between her two countries. The couple’s marriage was controversial, because Máxima’s father, Jorge Zorreguieta, was a cabinet minister during Argentina’s brutal “Dirty War” dictatorship in the 1970s. Dutch authorities banned him from his daughter’s 2002 wedding. Still, most Argentines hope Máxima will root, at least secretly, for her motherland.
Predicts Stabio, a Midtown-based consultant: “In her mind at least, she will be hiding in her boudoir, clenching a hot cup of maté tea in one hand and a chicken empanada in the other, screaming, ‘Vamos, vamos, Argentina!’ ”
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