Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s the best in the world at what he does, on his day – but with the current set-up, if it’s not his day, everyone else is screwed as well.

I get the arguments for and against Riquelme, I just don’t understand the venom that fuels those arguments. Even on English-language sites people (non-Argentines) get extremely wound up about this one player. Tim Vickery mentioned it in his last column for the BBC site, then the comments were full of bitching. When Marcela Mora y Araujo has written about him for the Guardian, the response was crazy. Pablo Aimar or Javier Saviola don’t rouse such passions. It just baffles me.

If there’s any contempt in my writing about Riquelme I’m sure it’s down to the River fan in me. That being said, I got more than a little irritated with Ortega at the end of last season as well. Allow me to clear one thing up: I rate Riquelme as a player when he’s on the top of his game. No-one in world football in the last ten years does what he does quite as well as he does it. The problem is that when you build a team around him, as I mentioned for Soccernet a couple of weeks ago, it only takes him to have an off day and the whole team suffers. What it does is create a ‘one man team’ when frankly any side with Boca’s players shouldn’t need to do so – and any side with Argentina’s players needs it even less.

The contentiousness with Riquelme comes from the fact that his standing at Boca (and by extention, ex-Boca man Alfio Basile’s Argentina) is so high that he does, perhaps, find it a little hard to keep his feet on the ground as part of another team. And in spite of his ‘modesty’ and ‘quietness’, he’s not exactly shy about looking thoroughly grumpy and returning the bitchy comments when they come his way.

I would swap the word ‘Europe’ for the word ‘England’ with regards to Verón, by the way. And that was primarily because his managers in England didn’t quite get his position. In Italy, there were few complaints about him…

What is it about Riquelme that inspires such conflict? Even your writing, Sam, takes on an almost contemptuous tinge when it comes to him. Everything he does seems controversial. The last Argentine player with a similar effect was Veron when he was in Europe. I know people are divided on just how good he is, if at all, but the same is true of many players. Yet none seem to be quite so contentious. So what is it?

The affect on me is strange — when his inconsistency shows on the field, I lose faith in him. A display of off-field passion would make me believe in him EVEN more.

Don’t ask me why I feel this way. Asking more from “older” players typically yields little result. Players grow futbolistically and psychology then they mature. At his age, Roman has little growth left and his play (when he’s “on”) is already world class.