08/08
2011

Game One: v Union de Santa Fe

Union de Santa Fe  1  Argentinos Juniors  1

We go through the motions, don’t we? It’s the start of the new football season – the 2011 Apertura, the Islas Malvinas Nestor Kirchner Julio Grondona Carlos Gardel Diego Maradona championship and we’re excited, aren’t we?

I mean, we’ve been deprived of our regular diet of thrills and skills, action and excitement, glamour and controversy during the close season and now it’s back. Only the first weekend of the new season was flat, uninteresting, lacking in colour and the Monday after the weekend before, horribly uninspiring. This is due to a number of reasons.

Firstly, River Plate are not there. We know that they deserve to be in the second tier because they simply lost too many games. But there’s no Boca Juniors v River Plate superclasico to look forward to. There’s none of that hope and expectation that the arrogant big city boys will fall to some hard-working but glamorous-less side from the provinces. The absence of the gallinas brings home the fact that however useless River may have been, they were glamour and history and football needs glamour and history.

I revelled as much as anyone in their demise but it is nonetheless sad – a little like seeing the Queen sitting on a park bench eating cold pasta out of a plastic container.

Then there was the bursting of the Copa America bubble. Argentina as hosts and with Leo Messi et al among their ranks were expected to do a little better than fall to tiny Uruguay on penalties in the first knock-out game. Uruguay were worthy winners and Argentina deserved no more than what they got but it’s left the world of Argentine football looking and feeling like a sink of unwashed dishes the morning after a not very good party.

Even without all that, Argentine football is and has been for some years in crisis. I’ve said it before but it needs to be said again and again.

The close season saw the usual exodus of promising young Argentine players abroad. Argentinos Juniors’ own favourites, the folically-challenged Juan Mercier went to Saudi Arabia while the miniature Franco Neill went to Queretero in Mexico. Every top club lost players – to France, Ecuador, Italy, Spain and Greece and the transfer window hasn’t closed yet.

It wasn’t all one-way traffic. Some Argentines came back and a few foreigners signed for Argentine clubs, most notably the Ecuadoran Jefferson Hurtado for Argentinos Juniors.

Mercier - following the money.

Mercier - following the money.

So every team is pretty much a new team. Most are fielding fresh players while many favourites have gone and the fans yet again are spending hours on websites acquainting themselves with unfamiliar team line-ups.

But all this activity again raises the question: where does all the money go? Some goes back into the Argentine game but not enough. Too much is simply unaccounted for.

And a huge chunk of the blame for that state of affairs lies at the sweaty feet of the repugnant, reptilian Godfather of Argentine football, Don Julio Grondona, the head of the Argentine Football Association for the past thirty-two years.

There are rumours that he’s losing his grip. But like with any dictator, it’s always dangerous to underestimate the power and influence of a man who has been cunning and clever enough to ensure that people who count are where they are thanks to him.

Of the nine games played over the weekend, six ended in draws. Argentinos Juniors continued where they left off last season by holding the ball impressively for large parts of the match only to do very little with it when they got within range of the goal.

Santiago Salcedo scored the opener just after half-time then went off injured while Union, back in the top flight after eight years, responded almost immediately.

Boca Juniors played out a painfully dull 0-0 down south at Olimpo. Football’s most miserable player, Juan Roman Riquelme, set the tone by complaining about the pitch and the fans. “It’s logical,” he said, “that on this pitch you play badly.”

Another of the newcomers, Atletico de Rafaela, beat Banfield 2-0, Lanus got off to a flying start by winning 1-0 at San Lorenzo and the only other decisive score came at Arsenal where Colon won 2-1. Reigning champions, Velez, took a point at Godoy Cruz, All Boys held another of the newly-promoted teams, Belgrano, 1-1 and Newell’s and Estudiantes ground out an excrutiating 0-0.

Five players were sent off, including Emilio Hernandez from Argentinos Juniors. There’s still eighteen more games to go. Things must get better. Please tell me they must get better! Please!

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02/08
2011

Copa America: Final

Uruguay  3  Paraguay  0

I know, I know. The first coat of dust has already settled on Uruguay’s 2011 Copa America trophy and I’ve still not written about it. But I have an excuse. I’ve been travelling. Up north, way up north in the province of Salta about as close as you can get to the Bolivian border without being spat at by cantankerous llamas.

We stopped in one village, San Juan, several hours walk from the nearest Facebook connection, that didn’t even have electricity. It had goats. And the locals grew several varieties of potato which they compared and swapped with one another by candlelight to pass the time on the long cold nights after the sun went down.

We did get to see most of the final though. The first half in a bar in the tourist town of Tilcara, part of the second half on a very small screen in a market stall selling crappy Andean jumpers and the last five minutes, and Diego Forlan’s second goal, back at our hotel in the neighbouring village of Maimara.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the best team won. But it was the worst possible final for the Argentine organisers. Uruguay has a population of a little over three million and Paraguay doesn’t have many more. No-one really knows since they refuse to stand still for long enough for anyone to count them so any figure will be only an estimate.  Then they die and new ones are born and I’m told that Juan Ramirez of Montevideo has been hiding in a cellar for five years so I’m not sure if he figures in any recent censuses, or should that be censi?

Diego Forlan: small country, big player.

Diego Forlan: small country, big player.

So pretty much the entire populations of both Paraguay and Uruguay piled into the Monumental stadium in Buenos Aires for the final and there were still seats to spare.

How embarrassing all this is for South America’s footballing superpowers. Uruguay would fit several hundred times into Brazil, if anyone could be bothered to carry out such an exercise which I don’t really see the point of since you’d only have to put it back where it belonged and would probably lose some of the pieces in the process.

And Argentina, Messi, Tevez, etc, etc. What a washout they turned out to be. I can only blame the manager, Sergio Batista – a man for whom I had high hopes.  Alejandro Sabella, once of Leeds and Sheffield United, said to speak Spanish with a Yorkshire accent, has now taken over the reins in time for the beginning of the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign which begins shortly against Chile.

How difficult can it be? Brazil qualifies automatically as hosts. Four others, possibly five, from South America go through. He can’t be as bad as his two predecessors, Batista and Maradona. And he’s got one of the finest selections of players the world has ever seen to choose from.

The most bizarre footballing story circulating in these parts in recent days was that the Argentine Football Association was planning to revamp the league. They were going to merge the first and second divisions to create a thirty-eight team division. There was no information about how this might work. The Godfather of Argentine football, Julio Grondona, tried to push it through with his snout as he has with every other contentious decision over the past thirty or so years. It was reported that he was under pressure from the government. He said no-one tells him what to do. The only reason anyone could think of for such a ridiculous plan was that it meant relegated giants, River Plate, would this way be back in the newly-expanded top flight. Unless of course they get relegated again in which case the first division would have to be expanded by another nineteen teams. And so on and so on.

After much incredulous head shaking, the fans and the club owners spoke up as one and Grondona, for once, was sent slinking back into the hole from which he’d crawled, mumbling and muttering and blaming everyone for the silliness except himself.

Both the Argentine and the English leagues kick-off this weekend. Argentinos Juniors travel to newly promoted Union of Santa Fe on Friday night. While West Ham entertain Cardiff City on Sunday. I’m predicting victories for both teams. But then I predicted Chile would win the Copa America and Andy Murray would win Wimbledon.  That’s how much I know.

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22/05
2011

Game Fifteen: v Olimpo

Argentinos Juniors  0  Olimpo  1

There is a shadow that hangs over Argentine football. It’s a large, omnipresent, fetid shadow that’s been there for more than thirty years although most choose to pretend it doesn’t exist.

This bulk that blocks out the sun goes by the name of Julio Grondona, the president of the Argentine Football Association, the AFA, and senior vice-president and chief bottom licker at football’s world governing body, FIFA.

Many refer to him as ‘The Godfather.’ And like Don Corleone, only a brave man or a fool challenges his authority. And Daniel Passarella is no fool.

In the dark corner - Julio Grondona

In the dark corner - Julio Grondona

While we’ve seen the usual kicking and shouting on the pitch, the real action this past week has been off the pitch.  Passarella, the president of River Plate, had the nerve, the cojones, to suggest in no uncertain terms that the time had come, after thirty-three years in the job, for Grondona to step down.

This caused shock waves throughout the Argentine footballing world of Emperor’s New Clothes-like proportions. There was a resounding, ear-splitting, ground shaking – SILENCE!

Grondona should go. That’s obvious to anyone who cares about open and honest administration and the general well-being of Argentine football. But he has such control of the game, so many are where they are through his patronage that Argentine football without Julio Grondona at the helm is simply inconceivable.

It would be like Libya without Gadaffi, Zimbabwe without Mugabe, the Pips without Gladys Knight.

While many will, quietly, be supporting Passarella’s attack, I fear he’s chosen the wrong reason to launch it. He blamed the referee!

Be honest! Have you ever been to a game without, at least once, complaining about the referee?

And in the Red and White corner - Daniel Passarella

And in the Red and White corner - Daniel Passarella

We all do it. We know that they make mistakes, sometimes score-changing mistakes. We mock their bellies, the gangly way in which they run, we question their parentage, their eyesight, their honesty. But would you want to do what they do? I certainly wouldn’t. What kind of a person voluntarily puts themselves in front of tens of thousands of baying, bleating, blood-lusting fans every weekend with nothing but a whistle and a yellow card with which to defend themselves?

When they have a howler we hang them out to dry. When they perform well we don’t really notice. Have you ever seen a referee applauded off the pitch?

That was pretty much the basis of Passarella’s attack on Grondona – that the wrong referee was chosen to officiate in last Sunday’s superclasico when River Plate lost 2-0 to Boca.

That same referee, Patricio Loustau, had been the man in black, yellow or green (I don’t remember which) in the previous week’s game between Argentinos Juniors and Boca in which he was abysmal. He’s a young ref who in that match seemed to lose his authority.

But as fans we kind of see what we want to see. I find myself shouting ‘Penalty’ when I know, deep down, that it was a tumble. Blaming the referee for your woes is lame. Grondona simply told Passarella to challenge him in elections later this year.

But this Grondona v Passarella bout has put referees under the spotlight. Every performance is now picked apart and fault can usually be found. One of the better-respected refs, Saul Laverni, had a terrible game on Friday night when Godoy Cruz claimed he disallowed a perfectly good goal and denied them a perfectly clear penalty. The man himself later said it was his worst night. “I don’t understand what happened to me,” he said.

Olimpo fans...from way down south.

Olimpo fans...from way down south.

Meanwhile, another referee, Marcelo Aredondo, has been sidelined after claiming a senior colleague urged him to favour a team in a match in which he was officiating in the lower divisions. There are dirty dealings afoot but anyone who challenges the status quo had better be well-armed, have ample evidence and perhaps re-watch The Godfather, Part II, paying special attention to Michael Corleone’s relationship with his elder brother, Fredo.

As a former River Plate player, who lifted the 1978 World Cup as captain of the Argentina team which he later went on to manage, Passarella, has a huge standing in the game. Grondona was never a player. He is tarnished with his association with hard core fans and is an anti-semite, quoted in 2003 as saying a Jew would never make it as a top-level referee.  “It’s hard work,” he said. “And, you know, Jews don’t like hard work.”

But no-one survives and thrives in politics in Latin America unless you know how to make yourself indispensable. Grondona could give master classes in the art. Gaddafi, Mugabe and perhaps even Gladys Knight might learn a thing or two.

So, to the game. This was one that both Argentinos Juniors and Olimpo, from way down south in Bahia Blanca, had to win to retain an outside chance of stealing the title. The home side huffed and puffed but simply couldn’t blow Olimpo’s house down and the visitors stole it with a breakaway five minutes from the end.

On the positive side, the referee Carlos Maglio had a faultless game. There were fans insulting him throughout but I, for one, applauded him off the pitch.

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18/10
2009

Game Nine v Racing Club

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?

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

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!

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