SA Blog Number 15: South American World Cup Fortunes – Argentina: Koko And The Ringmaster.
December 23rd 2009
Group B: Greece, Nigeria, South Korea and Argentina
The Argentine national team has rapidly descended into a travelling circus, with rolly polly Diego, the nation’s chief clown, at loggerheads with Ringmaster Carlos Bilardo. The AFA (Argentine Football Association) are doing a good job of planning the team’s trip to South Africa, they even booked the hotel, but they remain desperately trying to ignore the elephant in the room.
Things really are worse than anyone ever imagined. Those widespread clichéd utterances of ‘Argentina are always dangerous,’ or ‘despite their problems in qualification, they’re there now and will be contenders’ made by ignorant panels of “experts” on TV offer little reassurance, while similarly, last night’s 4-2 defeat to a Catalonia national team would have offered little comfort to a worried Argentine public.
In fact, this “expert” would go as far as saying I would be surprised if they make it any further than the second round, and even that might be an unobtainable goal unless Diego patches things up with Carlos Bilardo. Not only must Maradona take the former World Cup winning coach, now Argentina National Team General Manager, with him to South Africa – but will have to actually allow him to play an active role in footballing matters if they want to achieve anything this summer.
This isn’t one of those private conflicts that has been kept in-house, but one that has pretty much been played out in public since the beginning. In fact, even the players have expressed their unease at the situation, most notably Juan Veron, “For me, it´s not easy to be in the middle of an internal conflict between Diego and Bilardo because they are two people I care for.”
The foundations of Carlos and Diego’s relationship were built upon achieving World Cup glory as coach and player in 1986, but it’s rapidly deteriorated since Bilardo’s appointment as General Manager; an appointment that coincided with Maradona’s. It was no secret that Bilardo was effectively appointed to baby-sit El Diego.
Maradona has repeatedly expressed his frustration with not being allowed to pick his own staff and sees Bilardo as the embodiment of the lack of power afforded to him. He even accused his former coach of trying to bring down the AFA President, “There is a campaign against [Julio] Grondona here. [Daniel] Vila and Bilardo wanted to bring down Grondona.”
Bilardo and Maradona are chalk and cheese, night and day, Heinze and pace, Demichelis and football; they could not be more different. While Diego basked in the glory of being the greatest footballer on the planet after inspiring his team the World Cup in 1986, the coach, Bilardo, is said to have sunk into depression because his side conceded goals from set pieces. Bilardo is the ultimate pragmatist, meticulous, obsessive in the extreme; nothing should be left to chance, ever! Maradona, as we all know, isn’t quite in the same mould.
Deigo wasn’t at the draw in Cape Town (his suspension from football included the draw), but Bilardo responded in typical fashion: “I am content with the draw, but we can´t get relaxed.” He then lived up to his stereotype; first citing the loss against Cameroon in 1990 to provide context, “I remember what happened to me in 1990 when everyone was happy because we had to play against Cameroon and we lost,” before expressing caution, “We know what Nigeria means, Greece won a European Championship not so many years ago and Korea can make things difficult,” and finally focussing on the technicalities, “we don´t have to travel too much, we will be near our hotel and training camp all the time.”
Argentina’s most accomplished performance since Maradona’s appointment was probably the 1-0 victory in Uruguay that sealed their qualification – and it stunk of Bilardo. Argentina were organised, focused, regimented and methodical. They showed a discipline hardly synonymous with the current coach. Watching Bilardo and Maradona’s impetuously frenzied embrace at the final whistle in Montevideo; I couldn’t help but wonder, just how involved Mr Bilardo had been in that performance?
Well, that’s one for the conspiracy theorists, but what is abundantly clear is that unless Argentina address their overwhelming defensive deficiencies, inconsistency of selection in pretty much every position on the field bar that of Mascherano, and the lack of a ‘10’ in the middle (Veron will be 35 by the summer), they will fail miserably in South Africa.
Whether or not Gabby Milito can finally recover from his long term injury will prove pivotal for Los Albicelestes, with Real Madrid’s Ezequiel Garay and Inter Milan’s Walter Samuel apparently not even blips on Diego’s radar, Maradona’s current back four (Zanetti, Demichelis, Heinze and Otamdeni) is without question among the worst in the country’s history. If it is those four, then Argentina may even struggle to qualify from their group. The other major problem is in the middle of the park. While Veron has turned in some excellent performances for both club and country during his Indian summer, asking La Brujita (Little Witch) to be Argentina’s hub in South Africa is, well, a big ask.
Argentina also severely lack a leader. The current captain, Mascherano, repeatedly told the coach he didn’t want the armband. When he finally, and reluctantly, agreed to take it, Diego announced the new captain by triumphantly telling press “I´ve convinced him!” Which says it all.
Despite his magnificent club form, Messi too has failed to impress in an Argentina shirt and suffered some very unfair criticism. With no 10, no leader, and nobody to run the passing game in midfield, there seems only one logical solution: Juan Roman Riquelme. However, he and Maradona fell out almost a year ago, resulting in Roman’s retirement from the international game. And with both men as pig-headed as the other, a reconciliation before the summer looks unlikely.
And so, Carlos Bilardo may just be the only man capable of saving Argentina from the most embarrassing World Cup campaign in the country’s illustrious history; let’s just hope Maradona lets him on the plane.
Rupert Fryer, Southamericanfootball.co.uk
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Roman´s right peg
:::2009-12-23 15:55:54
"Heinze and pace, Demichelis and football" lol, very good.
What are Gabi Milito´s chances? With him fit and a relatively easy passage to the quarters they could do something I think.
Rupert_SAF
:::2009-12-23 16:19:04
Milito has apparently just been declared ´fit´ by Barca, who knows whether he will ever fully recover though. A starting spot in South Africa is a long shot.
They have been very fortunate with the draw, the prospect of a Uruguay vs Argentina second round clash is mouth-watering.
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