World Cup 2010 Previews: Argentina

Sure, he was smiling when unveiled as the Albicelestes' new coach. Will he be smiling a month from now?

Who better to break down los Albicelestes than a pair of Argentines? The duo known as AP is back, dissecting their beloved team. Just don’t ask them to discuss club soccer (one supports River Plate, the other Boca Juniors)…

Country Name: Argentina
Nickname: Albicelestes
Coach: Diego Maradona

FIFA Ranking: #7 (sandwiched between Germany and England)

World Cup Appearances: 14 appearances out of the 18 WC tournaments, starting in 1930.

Argentina withdrew in protest from the 1938 WC (the Argies thought the tournament needed to rotate between Europe and South America and were more than slightly peeved when the WC was held in France that year), then again in 1950. In 1954 and 1970, they failed to qualify.

Squad:
GK:
Mariano Andujar (Catania, Italy), Sergio Romero (AZ Alkmaar, Holland), Diego Pozo (Colon)

DF:
Clemente Rodriguez (Estudiantes), Nicolas Otamendi (Velez Sarsfield), Martin Demichelis (Bayern Munich, Germany), Nicolas Burdisso (Inter Milan, Inter), Gabriel Heinze (Marseille, France), Walter Samuel (Inter Milan, Italy), Ariel Garce (Colon)

MF:
Juan Sebastian Veron (Estudiantes), Javier Mascherano (Liverpool, England), Angel Di Maria (Benfica, Portugal), Jonas Gutierrez (Newcastle, England), Maximiliano Rodriguez (Liverpool, England), Mario Bolatti (Fiorentina, Italy), Javier Pastore (Palermo, Italy)

FW:
Diego Milito (Inter Milan, Italy), Martin Palermo (Boca Juniors), Sergio Aguero (Atletico Madrid, Spain), Gonzalo Higuain (Real Madrid, Spain), Lionel Messi (Barcelona, Spain), Carlos Tevez (Manchester City, England)

Fixtures:
Group B
Argentina v. Nigeria – Saturday, June 12th, 10:00a EST – Johannesburg (Ellis Park)
Argentina v. South Korea – Thursday, June 17th, 7:30a EST – Johannesburg (Soccer City)
Argentina v.Greece – Tuesday, June 22nd, 2.30p EST – Polokwane

Home Base: High Performance Center in Pretoria (which lacks suitable toilet facilities!)

World Cup History:
Winner (1978, 1986) – with Diego Maradona a major factor in the latter title
Runners-Up (1930, 1990)

Recent Form:
Qualification started fairly routinely under Alfie Basile, until a string of winless matches led to Basile’s sacking and the hiring of Diego Maradona. Argentina barely scraped through the South American qualifications, finishing in 4th place. Argentina’s last friendly game was against Canada in May, a comfortable 5-0 win that didn’t prove much.

Team Style:
Starting line up against Nigeria is going to be a 3-4-3, which will field:
Sergio Romero – Martin Demichelis, Walter Samuel, Gabriel Heinze – Jonas Gutierrez, Javier Mascherano, Juan Sebastian Veron, Angel Di Maria – Lionel Messi; Carlos Tevez, Gonzalo Higuain.

Argentina will field a fairly unpopular back three with Demichelis at the right, Heinze on the left, and Samuel, “the Wall”, in the center. Gutierrez, unpopular as he can be, is actually very versatile for his ability to move from a right-wing position to a less-natural right back depending on the development of the game.

Di Maria is going to be a free-flowing, free-roaming left-winger with far less defensive duties on his plate, which will require Veron and Mascherano to play a “doble cinco” (2 holding midfielders) in the center of the pitch. Veron will have a little more room to move up the pitch depending on how much Gutierrez is able to move up alongside. Higuain and Tevez will have interchanging roles up front, with either one able to move to sidelines to stretch the length of play.

Expect Tevez to continue his bulldog-like approach put to good use in the EPL to help recover possession in midfield.

And finally, Messi, the undisputed star of the team, is going to have the entire field as his playground. Expect him to start in the middle, and then shift to the right, especially if Gutierrez is ordered to stay in a defensive position. Maradona is trying to create awareness between Veron and Messi, much like “La Pulga” has with his Barcelona teammate, Xavi. There is a lot stock being put in this relationship of veteran and star, which is why they’re sharing a room.

Substitutions are probably just as much fun to speculate in Argentina as is the starting XI with their remarkable talent on the bench. The natural and most obvious choices are going to be Aguero for Tevez, Milito for Higuain, and Pastore for Veron. That’s assuming positions are to remain the same.

Otherwise, we could see Maradona shifting his team to a standard 4-4-2 over the course of the game, with Maxi Rodriguez coming in for a forward and Nico Burdisso or Otamendi sliding into the right back spot. Martin Palermo, the 36-year-old Boca legend, will likely never see the pitch during the tournament with the exception of those final, desperate moments when his powerful aerial presence is needed in the box. If Palermo gets playing time, it will bring long-awaited satisfaction for most Argentine fans, who see this athlete as an archetypical Argentine: a lot of potential, but the dumbest luck throughout the years.

Players that should not expect to see more than fifteen minutes of play (bearing injuries) are the two sub keepers, Clemente Rodriguez and Garce, and Bolatti.

There are obviously different views on Maradona’s formations, which show the same theme of defensive concentration and yet versatility up top.

Key Players:
Lionel Messi, FW – Barcelona
Reigning FIFA World Player of the Year. The list of accomplishments could go on and on, so instead we leave you with this clip.

Walter Samuel, CB – Internazionale
“The Wall” as he is known back from his time in Rome is returning to the World Cup stage after not making the 2006 team. Since leaving Real Madrid, Samuel has enjoyed the best moments of his career, which culminated with the treble success with Inter Milan. His experience and attitude in defense will be crucial for surviving the likes of Germany, Spain, and Brazil.

Juan Sebastián Verón, CDM/CM – Estudiantes
“La Bruijta” or “Little Witch” is known for his ability to pull strings and control the midfield. The play-making role was never assumed by anyone since Riquelme quit the national side back in 2009. Veron is a veteran who plays a high level of club football with his childhood team, Estudiantes La Plata. Under his leadership the team were the 2009 Copa Libertadores champions and painfully close to beating Messi’s unstoppable Barcelona in the World Cup Championship later that year.

Hotel Room Pairings in South Africa, in case you’re curious:
Mario Bolati-Javier Pastore
Maxi Rodríguez-Sergio Agüero
Jonás Gutiérrez-Marín Demichelis
Clemente Rodríguez-Martín Palermo
Diego Pozo-Ariel Garcé
Walter Samuel-Nicolás Burdisso
Lionel Messi-Juan Sebastián Verón
Gabriel Heinze-Javier Mascherano
Diego Milito-Gonzalo Higuain
Sergio Romero-Mariano Andújar
Ángel Di María-Nicolás Otamendi
Carlos Tevez (alone)

Question Marks:
Without much exaggeration, Maradona is considered a god in Argentina. The term is not supposed to cause offense or incite blasphemy; rather, it is a way for the mundane to explain what Argentines saw as they watched this kid play soccer. The hyperbole is a function of the Argentine society trying to escape their own reality by promoting individuals to levels of greatness that can somehow transport them to a supernatural state.

This coping mechanism of the Argentine people is actually the key to Maradona’s potential success as a coach. Rationally, Maradona has no experience, training, or even the ‘emotional’ intelligence to handle a children’s soccer league, let alone a World Cup squad. However, he does buy into this idea that he is a superior being, a genius that can provide moments of brilliance, whether on the field or in the dug-out.

What would happen if Maradona failed? His status as flawed demi-god would be reduced, if not completely erased. That motivation to push the team to greatness, even if it is only for the sake of enhancing his own image, is a key advantage that he has over his competition.

Maradona’s ego is often referred to as the weakest link in the Argentine machine. His erratic behavior and odd methodology are viewed as amateur and borderline dangerous. However, what he’s managed to do both during the closing phases of the tournament and during the build up to the WC is keeping the media’s attention on him and not on his players. That’s a tactic that even the “Special One” Mourinho used when securing Inter Milan’s first treble last month.

To be clear, there is obviously a lack of technical capabilities between Jose Mourhino and Diego Maradona; however, both have a similar position of dealing with an under-achieving group of disparate talents like Inter Milan and Argentina, respectively.

Maradona’s ego might be the attention diverting tool that will provide Leo Messi to have the inspiration (and ease of media pressure) to pull this off again:

Still, the lack of experience of Maradona at any level is going to be the fiercest rival to Argentina once in the knockout stage. Still, Argentina’s 2006 WC coach, Jose Pekerman, was vastly experienced at international tournaments and that wasn’t enough to prevent the blunders of the last World Cup, so maybe experience isn’t everything.

For more reading on Maradona’s background, read this article.

UF Prediction:
Argentina will have a pretty easy time getting to the knockout stage as the top of their group where they will face Mexico, Uruguay, France or South Africa. Argentina’s path to the semi-finals is fairly straightforward, which leads us to believe (and hope) that we’ll see Maradona in another final match after a twenty-year hiatus. This time, he hopes the outcome will be different.