Argentinos Juniors 2 Racing Club 0
With the national team now safely qualified for the World Cup and a two-nil win for Argentinos Juniors on a delightful Southern Hemisphere spring evening, all would seem well in the world of Argentine football. But all is not well – far from it.
The topic of conversation on the terraces was still, three days after the event, Diego Maradona’s diatribe against the press after his team’s 1-0 victory against Uruguay. He must have known. He was at this match, keeping an uncharacteristically low profile.
Reasons to be Cheerful?
Don’t get me wrong. Most Argentines are mightily relieved that their boys, after a disjointed qualifying campaign, will be going to South Africa next year. The tension during that final qualifying game against Uruguay was almost tangible. Hospitals said they had eighty percent less patients coming in than usual, police in the centre of Buenos Aires reported almost no crime and cinemas either pushed their films to a later slot or shut up shop altogether.
But there was a slow realisation that the face of the nation, the man who will be speaking on their behalf in South Africa thinks there is nothing wrong with urging, in public, his detractors to suck on his private parts – not just once, but several times.
That Diego should lose control is neither new nor surprising. He’s fired a gun at journalists in the past. What many find hard to stomach is that the football authorities in Argentina should defend his behaviour.
What the controversy is doing is shifting attention from the fact that Maradona, working with some of the best players in the world, has produced a team that would struggle to hold its own in the Argentine third division.
A journalist friend of mine was at the final team training session before the Uruguay match. He said that Maradona stood in the middle of the pitch with a whistle in his mouth looking like a bored dad at a Sunday morning park kick-around with his kids. Only this wasn’t the morning since Diego doesn’t get up before midday and all his training sessions start well after lunch.
There was no planning, no talk of tactics, just comments like: “Nice pass, Messi,” and “Run Heinze!”
“Hey you! What’s your name? Good shot. I’ll play you on Wednesday, instead of Tevez. Be in Uruguay by 6pm. Bring a dark blue away shirt and a spare towel and tell your mum you’ll be back by Thursday.”
That’s how, I at least, imagine Mario Bolatti got in the team. Few outside of Argentine football and plenty in it had ever heard of the Huracan attacker before Maradona brought him on as a substitute on Wednesday night. While some of the most expensive talent playing in Europe sat on the bench trying to decide which car they were going to buy next week, Diego brought on the boy who must earn less than Lionel Messi spends on designer bootlaces.
There was a national shaking of heads and a collective moan of exasperation. What on earth was Maradona playing at? But Bolatti, as we now know, responded by poking in a winning goal worth more to Argentina than a Christmas hamper full of Messis, Tevezes and Agueros.
Wouldn't have happened in my day
OK, with results elsewhere, we also now know that Argentina didn’t even have to win this one. But what the result did do was prove that Diego Maradona was right and everyone else was wrong, at least in his eyes. And that appears to be his main motivation. Not impressing the world and Argentines with the beauty of his team’s football – the kind of football he used to play. Oh no! His main motivation seems to be proving his detractors and doubters wrong and then rubbing their noses in the slimiest, foulest substance he can find.
Diego’s diatribes also go a fair way to distracting attention from the poor state of Argentine football in general and the man who’s presided over the national game from the late seventies, the head of the Argentine football association (AFA) and number two at FIFA, Julio Grondona. It was Mr Grondona who chose Diego, a man with little managerial experience and a suspect temperament, for the job. However, with friends in high places and in the media, criticism of the AFA president is as rare as a West Ham victory. He simply said his manager’s behaviour was justified given the pressure he’d been under.
Argentina continues to produce some of the best players in the world. More than one thousand play as professionals in leagues around the world, from England, Spain and Italy to Mexico, Thailand and Malta. Yet the quality of the domestic league is still pretty decent. This game between Argentinos Juniors and Racing produced some football as sublime as any I’ve seen anywhere, especially from the home team. Two first half goals did the business for Argentinos Juniors, the first from Andres Scotti with his hand – very apt in the Diego Maradona stadium where the stocky little idol began his professional career.
Yet something is rotten in Argentine football. Little of the money generated by the exports appears to get ploughed back into the national game. Many clubs are in debt and riddled with corruption. Others are plagued by criminal gangs working on the terraces. Some First division grounds would disgrace England’s non-professional leagues. The Argentine Under-20s failed to qualify for the World Cup recently completed in Egypt. And now the national team coach is threatening to use his private parts as a lethal weapon.
Maradona survives on plenty of passion and the wilting affection of a nation whose memories of him as a player are increasingly hazy. It might have been enough to get Argentina to South Africa, just. But it won’t get them very far when the tournament kicks off. And even if did, scrambled last minute goals and wild-eyed rants are not how most Argentines would like to win the World Cup. Suck on that, Diego!
Tags: andres scotti, diego maradona, julio grondona, mario bolatti, racing club, world cup south africa
