The Maradona era has begun. Olé announced even before the friendly against Scotland had ended that ‘the 19th of November, 2008, will be recorded with fire as a great ocassion in the history of our football.’ Not that they’re in any way hyperbolic. Diego himself was more reserved, but still showed in the post-match press conference that he was proud of his squad.
‘We have men who want to get out of this deep rut the national side has got stuck in, and I’m very proud for having chosen this route,’ Maradona told the world’s press after the match. He reiterated that word ‘men’ in continuing: ‘I found men. I found a great team. The last few days in the concentración mean that I can assure all Argentines that these footballers are going to give their lives in every match. They’re going to do everything to make the selección better. I found men, ahead of football players.’
Regarding the performance in the match itself, Maradona reminded everyone there was work to be done. ‘We had a brilliant [opening] twenty-five minutes, afterwards we couldn’t convert our chances and we gave the ball away cheaply. But Argentina won completely justly, although we should have had more of the ball.’
After that he spoke of the team’s talks prior to the match about why they hadn’t been winning, and insisted the air has been cleared. Then back to Wednesday’s match: ‘I’m not bothered about the win today, but I wanted them to give everything on the pitch, to soak their shirts with sweat, to play for the people. They’re wearing the sky-blue-and-white, and it seemed like they had another shirt of a different colour in the previous matches.’ Onward and upward is the clear message. Immediately after the press conference, Maradona boarded a flight to Madrid to be with his daughter Gianinna and her partner Sergio Agüero, following Gianinna’s hospitalisation with complications in her pregnancy on Tuesday.
For my part, I was pleasantly surprised by the team performance. It wasn’t scintilating stuff but Scotland are an improving side themselves and were never going to be easy to break down. The goal was brilliantly worked and the side definitely played with more freedom going forward than they have for a while. Without an enganche, the collective creativity seemed enhanced. Whether we’ll have the same dynamic when señores Riquelme and Messi return the fold, we’ll have to see, but this has to be a good base to start from.
I was surprised Fernando Gago didn’t play with a bit more freedom to roam, but having said that between him and Javier Mascherano Argentina had the better of the midfield battle by some distance. And of course, I hope Lucho González is going to get his chance in the not too distant future. The defence looked a bit dodgy. Again, why is Gabriel Heinze still even in the squad? And Carlos Tevez and Ezequiel Lavezzi didn’t quite click together up front, but given the late withdrawal of Agüero they surely weren’t the first-choice attacking duo.
Maradona’s real test, as I’ve already stated after the match report itself, begins with the match at home to Venezuela next year, but he’s shown at least that he can motivate the players as highly as we all suspected he could. Now if he can get that level of performance out of some of the ones who didn’t feature in Glasgow…
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Nice summary Sam. One thing Diego did not have to do yesterday was to open the box of talented players such as Roman, Messi and Aguero. So, we didn’t get to see how Diego handles those wonderfully skilled , but disparate personalities. A shame that we are going to have such a long wait to see how that evolves, but it will give Maradona some time to think about how he wants to integrate the three musketeers.
I couldn’t agree more about Heinze. It was more of the same – hard running and some good tackling, with an equal measure of mistimed tackles and aimless balls forward.
You know I’m not a fan of Heinze, but I have to say, even when I don’t like him, that he looked far better playing as a centre-back rather than as a left-back.
He kicked the hell out of a Scottish player when there was no need for that and shot a horrible free-kick when he shouldn’t have been anywhere near the ball, but then he closed down on opposing players inside the box, covered Papa’s back a thousand times and was very very safe on the air and through the ground.
Obviously, that’s his natural position. He’s still nowhere near the standard we need for our national team, but he didn’t look desperate as he did a number of times playing as left-back.