Argentina is now going through the same post-World Cup dejection thanks to German superiority that England suffered last week.  The destruction was remarkably similar – early German dominance converted into goals, followed by solid defending and swift and ruthless counter-attacking.

The absence of vast chunks of both the England and the Argentine defences was noteworthy. Another likeness was the failure to seriously challenge the German goal, although England were hindered by dodgy Uruguayan refereeing.

Argentina v Germany

England, led at great expense by supposedly one of the best managers in the modern game, failed to respond to German tactics. Argentina, led at great expense by a man widely recognised as being a useless coach, failed to respond to German tactics. So further similarities there.

But what are the differences between the two losing sides? Which should feel the most dejected?

England, let’s face it, really only have one player who, if he were Argentine, could claim a place among the albicelestes. If Wayne Rooney doesn’t perform then England can’t beat Algeria.

Argentina on the other hand, have roughly twenty million men who can kick a ball in a straight line. I must exclude from that list Pablo, who sells newspapers outside my local train station, since he only has one leg. But he can catch a ball better than most English goalkeepers.

There was much debate in the Argentine media before the World Cup about Maradona trying out over one-hundred players. But he’s got more than one-hundred players who are worth considering. More than one-thousand Argentine professional footballers ply their trade abroad – those in Italy, Spain, France, Holland, Portugal, Germany and England we know about.

But they’re also performing in the US league, the Greek, the Thai. They’re scoring and stopping goals in Russia, Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil.

And their own Argentine league ain’t half bad either. Argentina churns them out like the Japanese and the South Koreans produce cars. And like the Japanese and South Korean motor industry, there is no great secret.

Argentina simply boasts a well-run, enthusiastic, knowledgeable network of football schools. They ensure that talent is spotted early and nurtured. The other thing to be said is that they play a lot of football.

My point being that even with Messi not doing for the national team what we’ve seen him do for Barcelona, there are plenty of others willing and able to pick up the slack. Carlos Tevez for one. Then there’s Higuain, Di Maria, Milito, Heinze and Pastore. OK, so they didn’t do it against Germany.

The Nation Awaits...

But Argentina can look forward to a bright future since they’ve got a huge pool of talent and a new generation coming off the conveyor belt. They’ll have that clever little midfielder at Argentinos Juniors, some nifty left-winger playing in Belgium and, if he could get someone to mind his newspaper kiosk, Pablo from outside my local train station.

You don’t see that many kids kicking tin cans around on the street of Buenos Aires. Instead, they play on indoor pitches of which there are many. But just try booking one! I’ve played at 10pm and when I staggered off an hour later, there were always two teams keen to move into action until gone midnight.

It was suggested that England’s players were tired after a long season. Pathetic! Most of the Argentine selection plays in Europe for those same hard-working European teams. The difference is that when their country calls them they’ve got to jump on a long and arduous trans-Atlantic flight to Buenos Aires and then, quite possibly a connection to Quito or Caracas. And Buenos Aires to Quito or Caracas is not the equivalent of Heathrow to Berlin or Budapest.  Europe could fit many times into South America and still leave ample room for Cristiano Ronaldo’s ego.

Then there’s that old chestnut ‘the pressure of a nation on their shoulders.’  Take that pressure that the expectant England fans put on their national team and double it. Treble it, if you like. Then you might get some idea of the expectation, the hopes and dreams that the 40 million or so Argentines pile onto their players’ shoulders.

My mum, for instance, would recognise Wayne Rooney and David Beckham if she saw them drinking coffee in the town where she lives in rural Hampshire simply because their images have transcended the world of football. But she, and millions like her, would fail to recognise Frankie Lampard, Ashley Cole and Stevie Gerrard even if they knocked on her door selling insurance. And who knows? It sounds like they might have to if the mood over there is as bad as the British press would have me believe. I won’t even mention Gareth Barry or James Milner. OK, maybe I will.

But pretty much everyone in Argentina, even those who say they’ve got little interest in football, know their Messis from their Tevezes, their Higuains from their Di Marias and they know which clubs they play for and in which position. They know their wives’ and girlfriends’ names, their shoe sizes…OK, OK! You get the point.

They might discuss tactics, they might disagree on selection, they might think Diego looks better in a tracksuit than in that suit and tie, but this a nation firmly behind their team. And I don’t mean just when they’re winning.

The pain and disappointment being felt in Argentina is enormous. There will be a post mortems on every street corner, at every workplace, in every bar and cafe. But Argentine football is still strong.

They need to find a new manager, someone who understands the modern game and can mould some of the best players in the world into a team, someone who knows how to play Messi. England, on the other hand, needs to find a whole new generation of footballers, a whole new system, a whole new way of doing things.

Argentina will be challenging for the cup in 2014, I doubt that England will.

At least Argentinos Juniors managed to dodge the rain and play the full ninety minutes. Two of their five matches played so far this season were abandoned after the skies opened and the teams were not equipped with the flippers and snorkels needed to finish the game.

This was one the boys from Buenos Aires really should have won against a poor Tucuman side. Sloppy defending allowed Claudio Sarrio to put the home side in front in the third minute. But from then on it was all one-way traffic. Javier Paez equalised with an impressive own-goal in the 28th minute. Argentinos hit the woodwork twice, had the Tucuman keeper contorting himself into positions he didn´t know were possible and saw countless sophisticated moves break down on the edge of the penalty area.

It wasn´t going to be. But if Argentinos Juniors keep playing this way they will reap the benefits, eventually, with the results they deserve. Theirs is a history of remaining true to their footballing ideals, for which they´re rewarded every one-hundred years or so. Given that they last paid a visit to the trophy engravers in the mid-eighties, glory is due some time in the middle of the twenty-first century. That was the message I came away with after a visit to Argentinos Juniors´ newly opened museum.

Old Shirts

On the bus to the ground I warned my kids not to expect too much from the  museum. It wouldn’t be like the Boca Juniors or the Real Madrid museums that we’d visited previously. We’ve got photographs of us pretending to pee in all the urinals in the Bernabeu changing room since we know that at some stage, before some particularly nerve-wracking match, David Beckham would have used at least one of them. So would Alfredo di Stefano, Cristiano Ronaldo, Steve McManaman and Luis Figo for that matter. We’ve pissed where the greats have pissed.

At Boca’s Bombonera stadium, we sat where Diego Maradona sat before each game, beneath a small shrine and statue of the Virgin Saint of plump little arrogant but amazingly talented footballers. The dazzle created by the collection of silverware in both museums is so great that the use of sunglasses is recommended.

That’s not the case at Argentinos Juniors. They did in the mid-eighties, remarkably, unbelievably, win two Argentine national championships and the South American club title, the Copa Libertadores. But it has to be said that the Argentinos Juniors museum is a modest one telling the tale of a modest club. They do, however, do it very well.

The ticket man was unsure about the prices and called upstairs. I got the impression that any reasonable contribution would have been welcome. This is one of only three football club museums in Argentina – the other two being the aforementioned Boca Juniors and the not-to-be-outdone- by-their-rivals River Plate, who have just opened theirs. There are no open-topped tourist buses parked outside.

El Diez

The museum is only open for three hours on a Saturday morning. We wandered aimlessly into the ground, not sure where we going, until we came across the word ‘museo’ stencilled on the concrete pillars. We were welcomed by our guides, Alberto, Eduardo and Dario. The first thing we were told, as a point of pride and not an apology, was that the museum had been financed and stocked by the fans. And they keep donating dog-earred programmes and newspaper cuttings, pre-sponsorship shirts and a ticket from that 1954 match against San Lorenzo which they’ve found stuffed into the pocket of some baggy shorts.

Our guides were first and foremost fans. The club, with various changes of neighbourhood, stadium, name and footballers’ hairstyles has been in existence since 1904. And in place of pride in the entrance was an original piece of wooden terracing.

There is silverware on display on the shelves but the gaps between the cups have to be filled with old programmes, newspaper articles and other bits and pieces of footballing paraphernalia representing past decades. There’s a wooden corner flag pole, bits of goal net and a knife once thrown on the pitch in a particularly tense game.

Alberto, our well-informed guide, was constantly interrupted by his colleagues, keen to impart their own memories and opinions. A video was shown detailing the club’s history and as I watched, I could hear the guides, who must have seen the goals from those key games a million times, unable to contain muffled cheers since that 1977 goal against Independiente still meant something to them.

Argentinos Juniors prides itself on being the seedbed of Argentine footballing talent – the Temple of Football, they call it. Among those over the years to pull on the red shirt with a sometimes diagonal, sometimes horizontal white stripe are Juan Román Riquelme, Juan Pablo Sorín, Esteban Cambiasso, Fabricio Coloccini, Fernando Redondo, Julio Arca, Claudio Borghi and 1986 World Cup winner, Sergio Batista.

The Libertadores Cup - Really!

One name, of course, stands out above all others. The stadium, for Christ’s sake, is called the Diego Armando Maradona and his family claims the only executive box at the club. His picture is everywhere – a fresh-faced, cocaine-free, innocent look about him. Many of our guides had seen him take the pitch as a precocious sixteen-year-old and still talked with unbridled enthusiasm about his raw talent. Diego was at the inauguration of the museum in December, still harbouring a soft-spot for the club which gave him his start in the kids’ team, the Cebollitas or Little Onions.

He went on to the much bigger and more prestigious Boca Juniors but with the money received from that sale the club could put together a team that a few years later conquered first Argentina then South America.

When I tried to explain my affinity for West Ham, as a club that put more store by playing well than winning at all costs, our guides nodded enthusiastically and with understanding. “Yes, that’s us too,” they said. We all know deep down that that’s simply a euphemism to justify our loyalty to a team that is simply not very good. But without that kind of self-delusion we’d all be Chelsea, Barcelona and Boca Juniors fans.  And where’s the fun in that?!

What I’ve known since I’ve been watching Argentinos Juniors and was emphasised at the museum is that this is a neighbourhood club. It’s riddled with nostalgia. Nearly all the fans live in, or used to live in, or their grandparents lived in La Paternal. Grandads salute grandsons on the terraces on a Sunday afternoon. Boys and girls met here, relationships were formed and babies carried on shoulders, forced to watch another 0-0 draw against Newell’s Old Boys.

This is the kind of club where you feel like tossing your hat into the air when they score. And the museum reflects all of that. The guides were flattered, possibly flabbergasted, that a foreigner should support and become a season-ticket holder of their modest club. Alberto kept calling his mates over and saying: “He’s English, his oldest son was born in London, the youngest one in Spain…..AND THEY SUPPORT ARGENTINOS JUNIORS!!!”

If I was just an enthusiastic observer when I went to the museum, I was a fan by the time I came out. My nine-year-old son, Lucas, who had until then called himself a Boca supporter like his mum, confided that he was switching his allegiance. He’d found his team, the club that fitted his character and personality, where he felt he belonged. His mother is in shock but Boca, surely, have got enough fans already?

Photos by Benja and Lucas