Pekerman to Toluca

It’s been nearly eleven months since those ugly scenes following Argentina’s exit from the World Cup, which were, some say, behind José Pekerman’s decision to take a sabbatical from football management. He’s called time on that today, as it’s been announced that he’ll take charge of Mexican club Toluca, in what may well be a stepping stone to [...]

Farewell to VOF

This week is my final column for Voice Of Football, which will be closing down tomorrow. The archive will remain online and over the coming weeks an archive of all my columns will be shifted (somehow) to HLGS. My weekly opinion column itself will be relocating here from next week onwards.
Reflecting on the situation in [...]

Boca lineup vs. Cúcuta

Boca have continued preparing for the first leg of their Copa Libertadores semi-final, away in Cúcuta, which is played on Thursday night. Last time they played in this competition in Colombia, Boca conceded a late equaliser and lost on penalties in the second leg of the 2004 final to Once Caldas, in one of the [...]

The final five

The nominations are in for the Hasta Lo Gol Siempre award for Best Performance By An Argentine Abroad in the 2006-2007 season. One or two of them may surprise you. One or two of them certainly won’t. In alphabetical order, they are:
Julio Arca (Middlesbrough F.C., England)
Luis González (F.C. Porto, Portugal)
Lionel Messi (F.C. Barcelona, Spain)
Carlos Tevez (West [...]

The goals of week 16

Week 16’s mammoth Show de Goles is on TyC’s website now and can be viewed, as always, by clicking here. For the running order for the TyC clip, along with a selection of the week’s best strikes from our friends at GolesTV, step this way…

The scores, scorers and goals from week 16

Typical. I go away for one weekend, and Argentina goes goal crazy. It’s been a pretty good campaign for goal tallies, but after the 15th round saw just 13 in ten matches, this weekend the teams seemed eager to make up for the lapse and banged in no fewer than 36! Estudiantes and Newell’s were [...]

Libertad 0 - 2 Boca - the goals

This will be the final site update before Monday night, as I mentioned last night. The goals from last night’s Copa Libertadores quarter-final second leg between Libertad of Paraguay and Boca Juniors are online now, and can be seen here with thanks to our friends at GolesTV.

Week 16 fixtures

This weekend’s key clashes see San Lorenzo host Racing, Estudiantes at home to Newell’s and Boca, just a couple of days after overcoming Libertad in the Copa, at home to the rather tricky Gimnasia de Jujuy. Belgrano will play Colón in this weekend’s contribution to the relegation dogfight.
Fixtures in full:
Independiente vs. Argentinos Juniors
Nueva Chicago vs. [...]

Job done

Boca faced a very, very tricky task in Asunción on Thursday night. Having allowed Libertad a draw in La Bombonera last week, and an away goal into the bargain, they had to overcome one of South America’s toughest sides, in their own stadium.
It was touch and go for a while, but they did it in [...]

It’s a knockout

Each week I write a column for the British website Voice Of Football. This week: River’s virtual elimination from the title race, the Avellaneda derby, and Carlos Tevez returning home to discover he’s even more of a cult figure than before. 
‘It’s turning into a knockout situation at the top of the Argentine championship now. No, [...]