Sunday, May 9, 2010

ARGENTINA: CONTENDERS OR PRETENDERS?





Commonly known around South America as la Seleccion (the selection) or Albicelestes (Light blue and whites), Diego Armando Maradona’s side will be going into the greatest spectacle of the beautiful game as one of the favourites given the pedigree of players at his disposal. This will be their 15th appearance at the world cup where they have won twice in 1978 and 1986, and been runners up in 1930 and 1990. In recent times, their fortunes have not been as good, they managed to get to two quarter finals in 1998 and 2006, which is regarded by many as mediocre given the abundance of talent at their disposal. It seems the glory days of the late 80’s are now just a distant memory. Their qualification campaign was also very unconvincing marred with a series of disappointing results, change of coach and heavy losses. They barely scrapped their way out of trouble. Can this current crop of players put that behind them and take the team a step further to the semifinal at this edition of the world cup?

The road to South Africa was a very rough and bumpy one at the start, winning 4 of their first 10 games in the South American qualification zone. At this point coach Alfio Basile resigned claiming personal reasons though we all know it was after a series of poor results, the last straw being the loss to Chile. Their chances then looked even slimmer when the inexperienced, outspoken Maradona with a prior 6 month coaching CV from two unknown Argentine teams was appointed the new man in charge. He was to turn their fortunes around and take them into the world cup (their last absence was in 1970). The man, who is arguably the best footballer that has ever kicked a ball, brought an unorthodox style of coaching full of tinkering. He called up over 80 players during the course of qualification and 50 of them got game time. He was constantly at loggerheads with the press and full of emotion, evident from his animation on the sidelines. This did not change the inconsistency of the team; he failed to find a balance in his team and could not get the best out of the incredible players in the team that included the extra-human Lionel Messi. His constant chipping and chopping of the team didn’t help matters either, changing his team after every game and calling up every player holding an Argentine passport all over the world. In this period they lost 4 games to Ecuador, Paraguay, their rivals Brazil, and even 1-6 to Bolivia. They struggled to beat Peru and Uruguay in their last 2 games to get the last automatic ticket to South Africa. In my opinion Argentina did not qualify because they solved their problems or reversed their bad fortunes, they did because the likes of Colombia and Ecuador threw their chances out of the window by failing to gather a streak of good results. We wait to see if the fortunes of the Albicelestes can actually be turned and if Maradona is the man to do it for them.

The Argentine team possesses the best player of this generation(no doubt in my mind), the current World footballer of the year, Barcelona’s 22 year old Lionel Messi built like his manager and is just as skillful with the ball. He has a direct style of play and will take on any amount of players in front of him most times with success. He is full of goals most of which are memorable ones and he has shown signs that he can eclipse the wonders of Mr. Maradona. He has found it difficult to transmit this form into the national side where he is a mere shadow of the diminutive striker terrorizing defenders in Spain. He has had a beautiful season with over 40 goals, but signs of fatigue seem to be taking down his performances a notch (to human standards ) but with Messi you can never tell. Their attack boasts of prolific and clinical strikers in all the best leagues in Europe and selection will surely be the manager’s headache having the likes of Sergio Aguero, Diego Milito, Gonzalo Higuain, Carlos Tevez, Lisandro Lopez, Ezequiel Lavezzi to name a few. Worthy of mention too is the return to form of the midfield maestro Juan Sebastian Veron. After a torrid time in England, coming back home to play has rolled back the years. This earned him an international recall and now his role in the team is vital to their success at the biggest stage. The strength of Inter Milan duo Javier Zanetti and Walter Samuel in defence as well as captain Javier Mascherano and Esteban Cambiasso in midfield should help the defensive frailties and what I consider the second greatest weakness (after the coach) of this team which is in the goalkeeping department.

Maradona has used over 50 players (called up over a 80) in the last two years, picking 23 players to go to South Africa will be a mountainous task, I wish him well. On the 12th of June, 2010, he will have to shake off the ghosts of 1994 against the team he last played against at the World Cup before his ban after a failed drug test, the Super Eagles of Nigeria at the famous Ellis Park Stadium to start the campaign of a rather underachieving Argentine team, their last form of silverware was the 1993 Copa America. Recent form in their friendly matches suggests that they might be getting it right, will they get it right on time?

My verdict: They are expected to go through to the next round top of this group and I agree with that. I think the strength in depth of the team will at least take them through. I think what the great man lacks in tactical ability, he makes up for in man motivation and the team has too many outstanding players not to go through from a group where the other teams are relatively weaker.

At this point, I usually select a possible team but in this case as I have stated earlier that’s some job so ill name a possible team and add some extras that might just as well make it into the plane to South Africa

Goalkeepers: Juan Pablo Carrizo (Zaragoza), Mariano Andujar (Catania), Sergio Romero (AZ Alkmaar)

Defenders: Martín Demichelis (Bayern Munich), Javier Zanetti (Inter Milan), Pablo Zabaleta (Manchester City), Nicolas Burdisso (Roma), Gabriel Heinze (Marseille), Nicolas Otamendi (Velez Sarsfield), Walter Samuel (Inter Milan)

Midfielders: Fernando Gago (Real Madrid), Javier Mascherano (Liverpool), Maxi Rodriguez (Liverpool), Jesus Datolo (Napoli), Juan Sebastian Veron (Estudiantes), Angel Di Maria (Benfica), Lucho Gonzalez (Marseille), Esteban Cambiasso (Inter Milan)

Forwards: Carlos Tevez (Manchester City), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Sergio Aguero (Atletico Madrid), Gonzalo Higuain (Real Madrid), Diego Milito (Inter Milan)

Extras
Defenders
Gabriel Milito (Barcelona)
Emiliano Insua (Liverpool)
Cristian Ansaldi (Rubin Kazan)

Midfielders
Pablo Aimar (Benfica)
Ever Banega (Valencia)
Ezequiel Garay (Real Madrid)
Mario Bolatti (Fiorentina)
Jonas Gutierres (Newcastle)

Forwards
Lisandro Lopez (Lyon)
Martin Palermo (Boca Juniors)
Ezequiel Lavezzi (Napoli)

1 comment:

  1. you should consider going ino sports analysis, this was really good
    well researched, and well detailed
    loved it

    ReplyDelete