More fútbol argentino than you can shake a mullet at
The octopus predicting Argentina's downfall was right. On Saturday, Diego Maradona's team crashed out of the 2010 World Cup, thrashed 4-0 by an excellent Germany side meeting their own first real challenge of the knockout stages. A lack of creativity in midfield, Javier Mascherano being asked to do too much as the sole cinco and... Continue Reading →
On Saturday, Argentina take on Germany. It's a rematch of the tie at the World Cup quarter final of 2006, when the then host nation eliminated Argentina on penalties before some ugly scenes in Leipzig. This Argentina side aren't as well balanced as José Pekerman's 2006 vintage, but they have Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez... Continue Reading →
Carlos Tevez is, according to Diego Maradona, el jugador del pueblo ('the player of the people'). On Sunday, hours after the controversy during Germany's 4-1 thrashing of England, linesman Stefano Ayroldi confirmed to the world that he was indeed one of those 'people', allowing Tevez to open the scoring from a long way offside after... Continue Reading →
Diego Maradona's been keeping everyone second-guessing for the last few days. It looked a day or two ago like there would only be a couple of changes to the Argentina side that beat Nigeria 1-0 in their first match of the World Cup, but as of Saturday afternoon things were looking a bit different. Maradona... Continue Reading →
A quick note to say that those who are interested can now see a map of the birthplaces of all of the Argentina squad for the 2010 World Cup, provided to me by Bill's Sports Maps, on the new 'Squad map' page. Either hover your mouse over 'Map' above and click the drop-down menu, or... Continue Reading →
Argentina's performance yesterday against South Korea was highly impressive, and plenty of people have suddenly started suspecting they could go all the way and win the World Cup after all. Four years ago, though, we were in the same place after a 6-0 evisceration of Serbia & Montenegro in the second group game. And we... Continue Reading →
Well, it's fair to say the sceptics didn't expect this. The noises coming from the Argentina camp about team unity and just needing to spend some time together look like they weren't just hot air - on Saturday the selección played a match that was meant to be much harder than their opener, and it... Continue Reading →
In under seven hours' time, Argentina will be playing their second match in the 2010 World Cup, looking to all but assure qualification by trying to beat South Korea, for whom Manchester United's Park Ji-Sung, a good friend of Carlos Tevez, will be the principle threat. For Argentina, Jonás Gutiérrez will once again start at... Continue Reading →
Argentina's preparation for the second match of their World Cup challenge gathers apace. The main issues following the flawed but encouraging performance in the 1-0 win against Nigeria on Saturday were the right back position - where Jonás Gutiérrez clearly wasn't comfortable - and the extent of Seba Verón's calf strain, which won't keep him... Continue Reading →
After an opening performance from Argentina which ranged from the outstanding (Lionel Messi) to the anonymous (Ángel Di María) by way of the pity-inducing (Jonás Gutiérrez), I've done a write-up of the reaction in Argentina for ESPN Soccernet. You can read it here.
Hasta El Gol Siempre 