Selección Argentina are through to the final 16 with Messi back on form. “Dale! dale! DALE! Vamos Argentina! Yeeeaahhhhh!” Or, should I really say: “phew”. The good news is that we’re (that’s Argentina and all their supporters) through to the final 16. Great news for sure. But, let’s be honest, La Selección didn’t make it easy on themselves, despite having a particularly easy group.
So… will they, won’t they? They are, and always have been, one of the best football teams in the world. Of that no one has any doubt. They had Maradona as a player (good), they had Maradona as a manager (bad), and they have Messi. Messi! At the 2014 World Cup, what could possibly go wrong?
It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Argentina weren’t supposed to crash out in the quarter finals. Maradona was going to run around the Obelisco in downtown Buenos Aires…naked. It was supposed to be glorious. Well, maybe not the last bit.
On Saturday evening, the usual hectic, thrashing, fun-loving Buenos Aires was silent. Even the taxis appeared to be going slow. ‘It was like a cemetery,’ a friend said. Argentina were out of the World Cup too early, and they were beaten too easily by what was thought to be a young, inexperienced German side…
Ah. Yes. This is football. Football, they say, is more than just a game. Put two fiery Latin sides into the equation and you have 90 minutes of talent and controversy, passion and goals.
By half time in Argentina’s Round-of-16 match versus Mexico, Maradona was breaking up an argument (really) as the frustrated Mexicans lost their temper. Why the frustration? Where to start…
This is South America’s World Cup. Of the eight groups in the World Cup, Uruguay and Argentina have been crowned first stage winners. As it stands Chile, Paraguay and Brazil are at the top of their groups. Of the two central American teams only Honduras will bow out, with Mexico qualifying in second place. By contrast, the European powerhouses: Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and England have all had stuttering starts, surprising the pundits.
There’s a distinct danger this post will turn into an ode* to Messi, but oh what a player! We’ve since learned that South Korean, Chu-young, who scored an own goal in the match, has an IQ of 150. But it was the footballing genius of Messi that led Argentina to a convincing 4-1 victory over South Korea. And he didn’t even score a goal. The honours were left to Higuaín, who scored the first hat-trick of the tournament. And in the list of Argentine players, I’d put him behind Di Maria and Tevez, perhaps even Heinze, in the man-of-the-match stakes. It demonstrates the attacking depth of Maradona’s team…
The Argentines are a gregarious bunch. They sing, they dance, they wave their hands in the air like they just don’t care. In the stands during Argentina’s opening World Cup football game against Nigeria, blue and white dominated. Flags, often painted in support of their home teams (I saw Huracan, Velez Sarsfield, Independiente), were hung from the balconies, while the fans swung their shirts, oblivious to the cooling desert evening. By the dug out, Maradona was almost as entertaining as he once was on the pitch…
If ever there was the danger of a single man’s overbearing personality dominating a sports team, it is Diego Maradona’s over Argentina’s 2010 World Cup football team. Here is a deeply flawed man, exalted to god-like status in his home country (the Church of Maradona has more than 100,000 members), with the weight of 40 million Argentines on his shoulders. Since becoming coach, Maradona has presided over a lackluster qualifying performance (Argentina lost 6-1 to Bolivia, albeit at 4,000 metres) that saw his team barely scrape into to the World Cup finals, despite having a roster of players that reads like the finest who’s-who of the season…