Destiny Day for Diego
Posted on | October 14, 2009 | No Comments
Everything, from his surprising appointment to his disastrous team selection against Brazil, has seemed to inevitably lead Diego Maradona to tonight’s match.
Argentina fans have little to cling on to but blind faith in the national side’s coach and the concept that he has perhaps screwed up so many things in the past, he’s pretty much run out of mistakes to make by now.
His tactics have been wrong, his team selections have been wrong, his defensive approach has been awful and even his goal celebration on Saturday, which involved belly-surfing across the Monumental pitch, nearly went tits-up, with ‘El Diego’ narrowly avoiding returning to his feet with his trousers round his ankles.
The 2-1 weekend win against Peru at least kept things simple for the Albiceleste tonight; win and they go straight through to the World Cup. Draw and they go straight through to the World Cup. Lose and Ecuador can leapfrog them into the play-off place and knock them out completely.
Tonight’s opponents, Uruguay, have their own incentive. A win puts them over Argentina and into automatic qualifaction, while a draw will have them also sweating on Ecuador, who are playing Chile and need to beat them to make the play-offs.
Although Argentina did beat the team with the worst away record in the group on Saturday, it was by the narrowest of margins. Peru twice hit the bar during the game and scored in the 91st minute to make it 1-1. Only a Martin Palermo tap-in prevented the unthinkable; that Argentina’s chances would be out of their hands on the last round of fixtures.
While they will undoubtedly take some heart from the last-minute drama on Saturday, Argentina are still in disarray.
There’s still no whiff of a successor to Roberto Ayala, the centreback who led Argentina’s back line for a generation before retiring from international football. Without a replacement Argentina look disjointed, leaderless and even chaotic in defence.
The midfield is their strongest asset, with Lionel Messi pulling the strings, although of late he has not been able to repeat his domestic form with Barcelona in Argentina’s colours.
Up front Maradona has chopped and changed endlessly, as he has all over the pitch, and has only just got round to selecting Gonzalo Higuain, the only obviously capable Argentine target man on the planet. Still bizarrely excluded is Lisandro Lopez, the forward making waves with his new club, Lyon, and who scored just shy of 50 goals in 106 appearances for his last club, Porto.
A total of 78 players have been used in Argentina’s qualification campaign, with many of them selected and discarded with equal urgency.
But logic has never been part of Maradona’s game plan. Common sense isn’t necessarily in the script. Rationale is rarely on the teamsheet. Passion and improvisation are Maradona’s coaching assistants and chief motivators.
He and argentina will need buckets of both, plus a little bit of luck, if they are to break 75,000 hearts in the Centenario in Montevideo tonight.
Chris Breese
Tags: Argentina > Diego Maradona > Ecuador > Peru > South American Football > Uruguay > World Cup 2010
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