Category Archives: Argentina

World Cup 2010: Matthew Booth the perfect advertisement for integrated South Africa

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“So when some members of the Spanish press thought they heard him being booed by black fans at the Confederations Cup last summer they thought they had a great story about racial disharmony in the new South Africa and filed their copy to Madrid. They got it excruciatingly, embarrassingly wrong. The fans were celebrating their cult hero, launching into a resonant chant of “Booth!” every time the 6″6 centre-half met the ball with one of his thumping defensive headers.” (Telegraph)

…And then I booked my flight

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“It was a Wednesday. The Copa del Rey final had just finished. Sevilla beat Atletico Madrid in a pulsating game at Camp Nou in front of a packed crowd. I’ve always thought Atletico Madrid had rowdy fans, though I’ve never seen them live. Now I’m sure of it. Someone on Twitter in Barcelona said the Atletico fans outnumbered the Sevillistas down Las Ramblas by eight to one. Given the noise they made inside the stadium, I believe it.” (Just Football)

Messi / Durant

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“Kevin Durant is 6′9” and lanky, with a 7′4” wingspan. In a sport where length is all-important, Durant is as long as they come. Lionel Messi, 5′7” with a low center of gravity, is as nimble with the ball at his feet as anyone in the world. Durant has cited his mother and brother as his role models. Messi learned soccer from his father, a coach in Argentina when he was young. Both are modest, say all the right things to the media, and lead unflashy lives. Both seem to accept their success without being absorbed into it, using the love for their respective sports to keep them grounded. Messi has a reputation for shyness, while Durant, though soft-spoken, actively connects with his fans over Twitter. The two might not look it, but they’re very similar athletes, and you can learn a lot by looking at one through the lens of the other.” (Run of Play)

World Cup Coaches, By Nationality and Numbers

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“Below you’ll find a complete list of the 32 coaches at World Cup 2010. You’ll also find their nationality, and their age going into the tournament. Beneath that you’ll find some amateur hour number crunching I did with pen, paper and the calculator on my cell phone to work out a few statistics.” (World Cup Blog)

Video Of The Week: Argentina vs Netherlands – The 1978 World Cup Final

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“This week’s Video Of The Week is a little late due to other commitments, but it is an absolute belter – the 1978 World Cup final between Argentina and the Netherlands. There will be more on here about the Netherlands at the 1978 World Cup finals over the weekend, and this is something of a taster for it. We get to see the Argentinian protests over Rene Van De Kerkhof’s lightweight cast before the match, then the entire match itself, including extra-time. The Dutch team, often overlooked in comparison with their 1974 team, came very close to winning the match, as you will see.” (twohundredpercent)

Tango

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“You can find the tango all over Buenos Aires: in it’s mythical cafes, at the milongas, and by walking around the city’s authentic neighborhoods.”
“‘Tango is an improvised movement — at its best and most challenging, a politics of touch — carrying within its sensory mechanisms the potential instantiation of a politics that might be called a politics of friendship. Tango is a challenge to fraternization as the maxim for democracy even while it is the dream of a nationally unified identity. Tango is all of these contradictory movements of desire.’ (Erin Manning, Politics of Touch, p.28)” (Sports Babel)

Maradona’s management could be a sight for sore eyes

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“Following Argentina’s 5-0 demolition of Canada in their final World Cup warm-up match on Monday evening, Diego Maradona conjured up a rather disturbing image while on radio by promising to run around the centre of Buenos Aires naked if his side are victorious in South Africa. Football managers are prone to offering to go naked in public – Martin Allen and Gary Johnson have both made similar commitments in the past. But is it likely that the world will be exposed to Diego’s untoned frame waddling around the Argentinean capital?” (WSC)

How to sound smart at the watercooler

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“Everyone isn’t a soccer expert. Yet many of you will be caught in a conversation that veers toward the World Cup at some point in the coming summer. For those of you not inclined to scour Slovenia’s World Cup roster for hidden clues that could help the U.S. gain possession in the middle third, here are a few lines that will help you sound like you know what you’re talking about…” (ESPN)

Argentina coach Diego Maradona interviewed

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“World Soccer: How different is the feeling of going to the World Cup as a player before and now as a coach?
Diego Maradona: It’s been so long ago that I can’t remember, but I feel proud when I see my players killing themselves on the field to gain a place. They are the ones who translate their excitement to me. But of course it was easier as a player. I only thought of getting the ball and having fun. Now I have to control 20-odd players. The other day in training a shot bounced off the crossbar to me and I took a shot at goal. Some must have noticed from my happy face that the player in me came out!” (World Soccer)

ZM’s European Team of the Season

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Pepe Reina
“With only one game left of the 2009/10 season, it’s time to create that inevitable, impossible-to-please dream team from across the major European leagues. Playing in a fluid 4-3-3 / 4-2-3-1 system that remains the most popular formation throughout Europe, it also reflects the current emphasis upon centre-backs who can pass the ball, attacking full-backs, ball-playing central midfielders and versatile attacking players.” (Zonal Marking)

A World Cup Miscellany: Group B

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“In trying to think through the nations and the teams of Group B, I could not shake from my mind the word diabolical. And I mean that in the best possible way. Argentina with its strangely alluring combination of Latin style and ruthlessness; its claim to having hosted perhaps the most politically dubious World Cup of them all in 1978. Nigeria with its 4-1-9 scammers and its prize winning writers; its enigmatic and brilliant Super Eagles dominating FIFA age-group competitions with players of uncertain age. Greece with its recent protests for the workers of a bankrupt state; its cynical and magnificent 2004 European Championship on the back of 7 goals in 6 games. South Korea…well, they seem ok. It is a “random draw” after all. But I admire them each in their ways.” (Pitch Invasion)

South American trio count down to World Cup

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“Four years ago, in the build-up to the World Cup in Germany in 2006, there was a real buzz about South America’s big two. Brazil could boast a dazzling collection of individual talent. Coach Carlos Alberto Parreira had such riches at his disposal that, as he later confessed, he felt obliged to go against his own principles and select a team that was almost a throwback to 4-2-4.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)

There is a world of difference in how football is played

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“On Wednesday nights I play bad football with some other old blokes in Paris. I spend the game shouting instructions at my team-mates in bad French. They don’t listen. What is going on here is a clash of football cultures. I grew up in the Netherlands, where football is a sort of debating society. In France, as far as I can gather, talking during football is rude.” (FI – Simon Kuper)

Dunga and Diego are at it again

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“Bizarre inclusions? Check. Big name exclusions? Check. Wringing of hands, tearing of clothes and gnashing of teeth (largely metaphorically)? Check. Señores y señoras, it’s World Cup preliminary squad announcement time! And while there won’t be many chairs thrown through windows in rage at the choices made by the managers of Paraguay, Uruguay and Chile, South America’s two giants are grabbing the headlines. Well, what did you expect?” (ESPN)

England remain a World Cup long shot

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“Most bookmakers have England as third favourites to win the World Cup this summer. Their odds are always fanciful – driven down by patriotic bets made more in hope than belief. But a cursory glance around the competing squads should discourage any drunken wagering. It is not so much the players in the opposing squads that should deter potential gamblers, but who they can afford to leave out.” (WSC)

Brazil stay focused – Argentina look muddled

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“Dunga’s announcement of his Brazil squad for South Africa was a crushing defeat for the nation’s media in one of its favourite sports – trying to force the inclusion of big names players on to the plane for this summer’s World Cup. But it was the perceived excesses of Brazil’s stars that undermined their campaign in Germany in 2006 and paved the way for Dunga’s appointment. He took over with a message that individuals might win matches but groups win titles. Over three and half years later, coherence has been maintained.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)

Inter Milan (Internazionale) 4-3 Chievo Verona – Video Highlights and Recap – Serie A – 9 May 2010

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“The Italian Serie A leaders Inter Milan were only two wins away from clinching the title as they hosted Chievo Verona on Sunday, May 9, 2010. They lead AS Roma by two points and are aiming for their fourth straight Serie A title. They already have the Italian Cup and have a chance to win three trophies by the end of the season.” (The 90th Minute)

Inter’s Milito hoping to book a World Cup spot with Argentina
“Diego Milito’s goal against Roma last week gave Internazionale a 1-0 victory and its first title of the season, the Copa Italia, and put the club on track to challenge for the triple that also includes the Italian League and Champions League trophies. But the final destination Milito is really gunning for is actually in South Africa with Argentina.” (SI)

Players, Lives, and ‘A Beautiful Game’

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“‘What makes a player?’ Answers to this question, here quoted from Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger’s foreword to the newish book A Beautiful Game, are plentiful in world football. We debate the right age to go pro, the role of intensive youth academies, shifting population demographics, the dangers and benefits of increasing professionalization, and more in hopes of figuring out how to best tap the potential of millions of children playing the game with unstructured joy.” (Pitch Invasion)

23 for 2010 – Argentina: World Cup Squad analysis pt.1 (Keepers & Defenders)

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“How do you begin to predict the Argentina squad for the 2010 World Cup? Who knows what goes on inside Maradona’s head? Maradona used 37 players in his 8 South American qualifying matches, and many more in friendlies. In the last 12 months alone Maradona has called up a whopping 79 players, some of which were admittedly for friendlies in which Maradona selected Argentina-based players only.” (Just Football – pt.1), (pt.2 – Midfielders & Strikers)

Unlike Europe, Brazilian league preserves its competitive balance

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“In England, Chelsea and Manchester United are fighting for the domestic title. In Spain, it’s Real Madrid and Barcelona. Inter Milan is out front in Italy, as are Bayern Munich in Germany. It’s the same old same old.” (SI – Tim Vickery)

Gilberto Silva has become a symbol of Dunga’s regime

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“Nearing 34 and surely on the downward slope, Gilberto Silva prepares for his third World Cup – but the first in which he is guaranteed a place in the starting line-up. In 2002 he was a squad player with a handful of caps, only recently converted from centre-back to defensive midfielder, when on the eve of the tournament Emerson injured himself in a training-ground kickabout and Gilberto had to step in.” (World Soccer – Tim Vickery)

World Cup scouting: Nicolás Otamendi (Argentina)

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Nicolás Otamendi
“While much of the attention surrounding Argentina’s World Cup campaign will understandably focus on their star-studded attacking line-up, their chances of success in South Africa depend just as much – if not more – on Diego Maradona’s ability to configure an effective defensive unit.” (Football Further)

Carlos Carmona could be a player to watch in South Africa

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“Praise has flooded in for coach Marcelo Bielsa for leading Chile to the World Cup finals in such convincing and attractive style – and rightly so. The Argentinian has clearly done an exceptional job, inheriting a squad in some disarray following the 2007 Copa America and moulding them into a side considered by some to be dark horses in South Africa.” (World Soccer – Tim Vickery)

Nicolas Otamendi is one of Argentina’s unsung heroes

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“First, because Maradona has made a point of playing friendlies with a squad solely made up of home-based players. Otamendi featured in the first of them, against Panama in May of last year, and was soon plunged straight into the tumultuous World Cup qualification campaign.” (World Soccer – Tim Vickery)

Lionel Messi: Argentina star player at World Cup 2010

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“Considered to be one of the finest players of his generation, Messi has seen his playing style and ability compare to those of Argentina head coach Diego Maradona, who has identified Messi as his successor. The diminutive winger has been playing the game since he was barely able to walk and his potential was quickly noticed by Barcelona.” (Telegraph)

Reasons To Love (and Hate) All the teams in South Africa

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“So with the World Cup coming up, many of you will be looking for a team to follow either as a second team when your team inevitably gets knocked out in the Quarter Finals on Penalties (perhaps that one is just me) or because your team didn’t make it to South Africa. Either way, at some point you are going to need someone to follow. Often this is irrational and you just like a team. Sometimes you need a reason, sometimes you just inexplicably hate someone, or maybe they have a player you like from the club you follow.” (World Cup Blog)

World Cup Preview: Group B

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“The 19th FIFA World Cup kicks off in eight weeks today, and as such Dotmund continues his almost-in-depth look ahead to this summer’s festivities. Today he continues his preview of each of the eight groups, having been sent foraging for facts on the internet with only his trusty big pencil for company. Up for examination in this week’s post, Group B.” (twohundredpercent)

Brazil must reform its domestic league if it is to thrive

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“The 2010 version of the Brazilian championship kicks off with the presence of all four national team strikers from the last World Cup: Ronaldo, Adriano, Robinho and Fred. Meanwhile, Roberto Carlos is back from Europe, as are Vagner Love, Ewerthon and Lincoln.” (World Soccer – Tim Vickery)

Aesthetics and Justice

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“The crux of the problem is the Hand of God goal and whether, if you could, you would go back in time and stop the referee from awarding it. This is where you confess to the moon that you view the sport a certain way and that you think of it as a game or a story. I think of it as a story, which is why I wouldn’t change anything about the Hand of God goal even if I had control of all dimensions. But it’s easy to understand both viewpoints.” (Run of Play)

Could personal technology stop a winning World Cup squad spirit?

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“I have been back in England for a quick visit and I was struck by an outburst that Hull boss Iain Dowie aimed at his squad. ‘Sometimes the players have to forget about the iPods,’ he said. ‘They need to think about what really matters.’ He went on to admit: ‘I’m not a big fan of these big earphones on the way to games,’ and that ‘my thing with the iPod generation is that when they leave the ground and go away to their closeted little lives they shouldn’t forget what’s got them where they are and what impact they can have.’ It is, of course, the complaint of a member of one generation about the desocialising effect of technology on the next.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)

Undercurrents of Violence at the World Cup

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Emmanuel Adebayor
“How easy it is to forget that athletes at their peak are, by the very nature of their tasks, young but expected to be wise in their event, world-traveled but isolated and vulnerable. This week, Emmanuel Adebayor, the goal scorer for Manchester City, gave up the captaincy and, he said, the calling to ever play again for his country, Togo. He is 26 and a millionaire, and he said he just cannot get out of his head the day in January when Angolan separatists fired on the Togo team bus, killing three people in it.” (NYT)

Maradona: Pancho Villa in Soccer Shorts

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“I was lucky enough this past Saturday night to see the 2008 film Maradona by Kusturica (it is currently unavailable in the United States). It was the same night that, 30 minutes into the El Clasico matchup with Real Madrid—what was essentially the La Liga championship match—Barcelona’s Argentine striker Lionel Messi catapulted his way into the penalty box, chested an incoming cross in such a way that turned his defender completely around, and then slap-kicked the ball so it bounded past the helpless goalkeeper.” (Vanity Fair) Must Read Soccer

The Case of the Soccer Con Artist

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“Last summer, CSKA Sofia, the winningest soccer club in the history of Bulgaria, invited an intriguing prospect to train with the team. The player, a Frenchman named Greg Akcelrod, had been climbing the ranks of European soccer, signing with a top-flight Paris club and training with a team in Argentina. He had an agent and a Web site that showed him scoring a goal for the English club Swindon Town. He’d even been chosen as an ambassador for Lance Armstrong’s charity.” (WSJ)

Uruguay rates as Group A favorite

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“The group that drew hosts South Africa, rather than one of the seven other seeded teams, was supposed to be among the easiest in the World Cup. Instead, Group A will be one of the toughest and certainly among the most competitive. Consider that this group could have consisted of South Africa, New Zealand, Slovakia and Paraguay. Instead, the hosts are paired with three teams that place in the Soccer Power Index’s top 17. And South Africa itself will be no pushover, as it’s playing better football of late and is poised to take advantage of its home status.” (ESPN)

Immigrant pride and working-class thrift

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Italy
“A century ago when the Velez Sarsfield club was founded in Argentina their shirts were plain white – the cheapest they could find. Then they went with stripes of red, green and white – a tribute to the Italian origins of the club’s founders. Finally they settled on the current strip – which, with a blue V on a white background looks like something out of rugby league. This is no coincidence. The story goes that they were offered a good deal on the shirts, which a rugby club had ordered and not bothered to collect.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)

How Many Africans Bound for South Africa Remains to Be Seen

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“As the 32 national team managers evaluate players consider injuries and plot strategy ahead of the 2010 World Cup, millions of soccer fans around the world are completing their own plans for the qaudrennial tournament. Most will watch on TV (some in 3-D). Still, organizers expect as many as 450,000 fans to travel to South Africa and join almost a million vuvuzelas-blowing local fans attending the tournament.” (NYT)

Arsenal, Barcelona, & the Beautiful Game Myth

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“In the soccer sporting world, certain assertions are taken as universal truth. A headed goal is ugly. A pass in the air that sales for over 30 yards is “direct.” A team unwilling to pressure for possession, instead waiting to capitalize on mistakes, is cynical. The linear equation of “pass + pass = beauty” can be replicated on an exponential scale. Arsenal & Barcelona, of course, embody this principle in the flesh & blood. But, in anticipation of the Kantian ideal of beauty vs. the slightly-better-looking Kantian ideal of beauty, the rematch, I suggest such statistics fail to account for certain integers that loiter in a gas station parking lot between X and Y.” (futfanatico)

Media glare continues to suffocate Brazil’s stars

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“In the 1974 World Cup Brazil took such a beating from Holland that four years later it was obsessed with imitating the ‘total football’ of the Dutch, with their constant positional changes and intense pressure on the ball. It didn’t work. As one Brazilian journalist commented, ‘in a team game like soccer you need to have the right cultural base to introduce modifications’.” (SI – Tim Vickery)

Caniza experience crucial for Paraguay

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“Can Lionel Messi reproduce his Barcelona form for Argentina? Will Wayne Rooney be able to sustain his current level of performance into June and July? Might Cristiano Ronaldo, or even Kaka, be fresher at the end of the club season because Real Madrid are out of the Champions League? The World Cup is where reputations are confirmed and football fans across the planet are hoping the stars to be firing on all cylinders in South Africa.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)

Rare Struggles for Argentine Powers

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“Two of the most popular teams in Argentina — River Plate and Boca Juniors — and their legions of frenzied fans are not a happy bunch these days. The two clubs have long dominated the game in the South American nation and in the capital, Buenos Aires, but they are trapped in the lower half of the first-division standings more than halfway through the Clausura (closing tournament).” (NYT)

Stranger than Fiction: Maradona and Messi

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“This is the age of permanent record, and as such there is now a growing desire for the sort of personalities that will somehow lift the banal stream of day-to-day news roundups into capital H ‘History.’ It is a yearning for the age of “Great Men”. You can see it as pundits react to President Obama signing an inadequate health bill through the House of Congress the other day.” (A More Splendid Life)

How the 2000s changed tactics #2: Classic Number 10s struggle

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“The decade started with the most attacking, open tournament in modern football, at Euro 2000. The four semi-finalists all played ‘classic’ Number 10s in the hole between the opposition defence and midfield. France, Italy, Portugal and Holland had Zinedine Zidane, Francesco Totti, Manuel Rui Costa and Dennis Bergkamp respectively – it almost seemed essential to have a player in this mould to be successful – helped by trequartista-less England and Germany’s early exits.” (Zonal Marking)

The Joy of Six: Footballing brawls

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Chile 2-0 Italy, World Cup first round, 1962.
“Chile was recovering from an earthquake that had killed nearly 6,000 people, and didn’t have much money in the first place, so its countryfolk weren’t particularly disposed to tolerate the two Italian journalists who swanned into Santiago ahead of the World Cup finals, sifted through the wreckage, and sent home dispatches painting a picture of Chile’s capital as a poverty-stricken hole full of loose women.” (Guardian)

Spain are the team to beat in South Africa

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“Spain’s last game before they name their final squad in June could be summed up in a single word. The same word that could also be used to sum up their qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup. The same word could be used again for their Euro 2008 campaign.” (World Soccer)

Colombia’s time to host World Cup?

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“Brazilian midfielder Mauro Silva checked in his luggage to travel to to Colombia for the 2001 Copa America, and then had second thoughts. Scared by the country’s reputation, he decided not to go. I remember feeling a similar trepidation at exactly the same time when I boarded the plane in Rio to fly up and cover the tournament. What on earth was I letting myself in for?” (SI – Tim Vickery)

Fitness the key for Brazillian success

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“Following the international friendlies, I wrote last time that the week’s big winner was Argentina coach Diego Maradona. Seven days later, perhaps his Brazilian counterpart can crack the biggest smile. As Andre Kfouri wrote in the sports daily Lance!: ‘Dunga must have loved the elimination of Real Madrid and Milan from the Champions League. The Spanish giant, because Kaka will have a lighter fixture list in the build up to the World Cup. And the Italian giant because the pressure to recall Ronaldinho will diminish. And the national team coach will be cheering for Chelsea to knock out Internazionale – a rest for Julio Cesar, Lucio and Maicon, more work for Drogba’.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)

The World Cup Of National Anthems (Part One)

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“For many people, major sports tournaments are the only occasion that national anthems are heard. These peculiar tunes have become a genre of their own, transcending the mere hymns that many of them were in first place, and they range from the gloriously uplifting to mournful dirges. The selection of words has, in many countries, brought about national debate that has been all-encompassing. In the case of Spain, it was decided that it would probably be for the best just to not bother having any for the sake of national unity.” (twohundredpercent)

Argentina boost World Cup credentials

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“The warm-up work could hardly have gone better for the South American World Cup sides in action last week. Paraguay had trouble finding opposition and had to settle for a visit to Athletic Bilbao, who fielded an under strength side. No problem. Coach Gerardo Martino had plenty to smile about after his side’s 3-1 win.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)

Nigeria Might As Well Hire Me Next: Systemic Problems In African Hiring

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“Nigeria has appointed Swede Lars Lagerback as their new national team coach on a five-month contract. I’m still trying to figure out why. I wrote an earlier piece about African nations’ perpetual need to hire foreigners to lead African teams. With the firing of Nigerian Shaibu Amodu, there’s only one remaining African coach poised to lead a side at Africa’s first World Cup, Algeria’s Rabah Saadane.” (Nutmeg Radio)

Spain and Brazil set World Cup pace

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“It’s been a week of bizarre contrasts in preparing for World Cup commentaries without forgetting the pressing need to keep on top of the Premier league scene. Michael Owen’s latest injury nightmare took me back to a hot evening in St Etienne 12 years ago. England’s penalty shoot-out defeat by Argentina remains one of the most dramatic games I have ever covered. Owen’s scintillating goal had the tournament gasping in awe – he had the world at his feet.” (BBC)

Stereotyping the African: 99 Days to a Change of Imagination?

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Abou Diaby
“An article by Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian today asks an interesting question for those of us who grew up in an era in which West African football was the realm of skilled artists such as Abedi Pele, George Weah, Roger Milla, and exciting teams like the ‘original’ Nigerian Super Eagles who played swashbuckling, imaginative football. In a piece that starts out by discussing Egypt’s tactical formation (very interesting as well), he goes on to ask…” (Soccer Politics)

Earthquake tragedy hits Chilean Cup preparations

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“This week is the last for international friendies before the end of the season. It’s the final chance for fringe players to push their claims for a World Cup place. Chile thought they had found the perfect way to give all their players the opportunity to show their stuff with a double-header on Wednesday against Costa Rica and North Korea, one after the other. But then the country was struck by Saturday’s massive earthquake and amid the chaos and confusion the matches could clearly not go ahead.” (BBC – Tim Vickery)

The Sweeper: Chile’s Earthquake and the World Cup
“Following the devastating earthquake there this weekend, Chile unsurprisingly cancelled two international friendlies scheduled for this Wednesday as part of their World Cup preparations. Few in Chile right now will be thinking about football with more than 700 dead.” (Pitch Invasion)