Supercrassico

The Almost Magic of the Copa Argentina

2012-02-03T11:59:00.000-03:00

The invincible champions against the lowly team from Tandil, this was the banana skin we’d been waiting for in the first year of the Copa Argentina. And it almost came. After 90 minutes Boca Juniors and Santamarina of the Torneo A, the third tier of Argentine football, were level at 1-1.

Then Boca went and ruined it by winning 4-3 on penalties. It was a bit like the feeling I get in general about this competition: the magic’s almost there, but not quite.

One of the things that struck me most when I first started following football in Argentina was the lack of a domestic, all-encompassing cup competition. And for all the many charges leveled at Julio Grondona’s AFA - corruption, laissez-faire attitude to safety, killing puppies, the introduction of the Copa Argentina is very much a good thing.

Coming from England, it’s hard to believe such a football-mad country doesn't have its own history of Sutton United's, Wrexham's and Wimbledon's, pulling the big boys’ pants down. But the Argentine league is a complex beast, which makes organising a cup competition tricky. Different divisions appear and disappear regularly and constant restructuring makes the system still feel like a work in progress. Even earlier this week there were talks about returning to European-style league seasons and ditching the Apertura and Clausura format for the Primera División.

There’s also the distances to take into account. Argentina is stupidly massive. Britain would fit into the province of Buenos Aires three times. If you measured out the length of Argentina in small intestines it would go around enough tennis courts to stretch to the moon. Or something. For a small club in Ushuaia the logistics and cost involved in travelling around the country for cup ties are a huge headache and that may be a reason why it’s not happened before.

But as of August 2011, 186 clubs embarked on the long and arduous journey to the final on May 22nd. As in England, entry is tiered, with clubs from different levels coming in at different stages. So far so good. My problem is when the teams arrive in the stage currently being played, the “fase final”. Rather than playing at their own grounds the 64 clubs that remain are sent to one of six locations (Salta, Catamarca, San Juan, Chaco, Buenos Aires or Santa Fe).

According to AFA this will give smaller clubs the feeling of being in a big tournament, like a World Cup, and the chance to play in a much larger stadium. But is this really the point? A neutral venue and a good stadium (most of which were built or renovated in the last few years) undoubtedly favours the bigger clubs. Boca were almost turned over by Santamarina last night in the comfortable confines of Salta’s 20,000-capacity Estadio Padre Ernesto Martearena. What if they had played at Santamarina’s snug ground, which hods just 5,000? Even a game at the Bombonera would have been preferable for the Aurinegro. Less chance of winning perhaps, but they would have had the once in a lifetime opportunity to play at one of the world’s great stadiums.

Geographically the centralised locations make no sense. Tandil is about four hours from Buenos Aires, but both teams took the mammoth journey to Salta in the North West of the country. Another fixture in this stage saw Independiente play Colegiales. El Rojo are from just south of city limits and El Tricolor lie just north of Buenos Aires. Both made the same trip to Salta. While I agree with the effort made to bring bigger games to the rest of the country and break the huge capital bias, a bit of common sense needs to be used.

That it exists is a great thing, but for the Copa Argentina to flourish, it needs David and Goliath stories. At the minute AFA aren’t giving the giant killers enough of a helping hand.

Here are the highlights from Boca's narrow victory last night. If Santamarina learn anything from this game it should be this: never let a man with blond dreadlocks take a penalty.

The Summer Superclásico

2012-01-25T15:29:00.000-03:00

A couch potato’s summer in Argentina is punctuated by two huge events: the Mar del Plata best bum competition, and the summer superclásico. With the former already decided (congratulations to local girl Sofía Albor, 19), tonight sees football take centre stage.

After weeks of flaccid friendlies, it’s time for a game actually worth watching, the first superclásico de verano: Boca v River, in Chaco, of all places. A cool 1,000km from their Buenos Aires homes, Argentine football’s sworn enemies meet for the first time this year in the sweltering sub-tropical heat of Resistencia, way up in the north-eastern corner of Argentina, by the Paraguayan border.

A regular fixture on the summer calendar, these pre-season derbies are usually all mouth and no trousers affairs, but not this year. With the two separated for the first half of the footballing year in different divisions, fans have been starved of the savage pantomime of River v Boca for long enough. With a security operation on par with an Israeli state visit to Palestine, Millonario and Xeneize fans will enter the city by completely different routes to see their sides do battle at 22.10 tonight.

As far as reinforcements on the pitch go, the summer months have been a tale of two strikers, one who will probably play tonight, another who isn’t allowed to. For River the man of the moment is that lanky, sort-of-French, World Cup winner David Trezeguet. He may have a French name and an illustrious career with Les Bleues behind him, but if you hear him speak, the former Juventus striker is as porteño as a cut-off plastic bottle filled with fernet and coke. Born in Rouen, he grew up in Buenos Aires, getting his break playing for Platense before moving to Monaco.

Juventus’ fourth top scorer of all time becomes the latest millonario fan to return to the cause, joining other talented attackers Alejandro “Chori” Dominguez and Fernando Cavenaghi. Questions always have to be asked about these returning “greats”. The once imperious Roberto Ayala, for example, was beyond hopeless when he returned to Argentina to play for Racing in 2010. The 34-year-old Trezeguet spent 2010 failing to keep Hércules in Spain’s Primera Liga before setting off for one of those megabucks stints in the Far East that have become the equivalent of Gary Lineker’s Grampas 8 misadventure. He cancelled his contract with Baniyas, in the UAE, in November, due to injury.

BUT! Having said all that, Trezeguet took to the pitch for the first time in a River shirt in a friendly against Racing last week and in two touches showed more class than you’d see from most Primera División strikers over the course of a season. It’s not that the goal was a masterpiece, it’s just that it was so clinical, the work of a goalscorer who really wants to score goals, not simply put the ball through people’s legs. Watch it for yourself:

Trezeguet is in line to at least play some part of this evening’s game. For Boca’s new hit man, things are more complicated. That great South American journeyman and Uruguay’s answer to Vin Diesel, Santiago Silva, is back on Argentine shores after a flirtation with Fiorentina which both parties seem to now regret. Silva controversially left Vélez Sarsfield, the team he had just led to the 2011 Clausura championship, when the Italian club met his buyout clause at the last minute, leaving El Fortín no time to find a replacement for their talisman. With Fifa rules stating a player cannot play for three different clubs in the same year, the follicly challenged frontman won’t be playing for Boca in the upcoming Clausura, although bizarrely he can play for them in the Copa Libertadores, starting in February.

AFA are in negotiations with FIFA at the minute about making an exception for Silva, and with Julio Grondona and Sepp Blatter such great pals, who’s to say they won’t work something out. If they do, he’s a great signing. Instrumental under Julio Falcioni in Banfield’s championship-winning season, apparently the Boca coach called him personally to persuade him to come to the Bombonera (the notion of tapping up players doesn’t exist in Argentina). With Dario Cvitanich disappointing and Lucas Viatri inconsistent, in Silva they have secured a proven goalscorer and a proper number 9.

With or without Silva, it will be good to see a summer superclásico played with something approaching the passion of the competitive version. Pride is at stake, especially for River, as they try and prove to their rivals that relegation last year was just a momentary blip. There may be blood (Cvitanich has spilt some already) but whatever happens, there’ll be a chance for revenge when the two sides meet again in Mendoza on Sunday.

Boca To Win Title By Default

2011-12-02T09:58:00.008-03:00

A point at La Bombanera on Sunday evening will give Boca their first title since 2008 and the first in front of their own fans since 2000. But there’ll be no firework finish like three years ago, Boca have won the 2011 Apertura at a canter.

Nine points clear with three games to go, unbeaten and with just four goals conceded in 16 games, the statistics are impressive. But they’re also misleading. Boca have not been great. Proficient undoubtedly, decent yes, but even good is a stretch and depressingly for Argentine football, that’s been enough to run away with the title. Racing, Boca’s only real rivals in this chase, were simply false contenders. They put the final nail in the coffin of their title challenge when they choked against an under par Boca team at La Bombanera a fortnight ago.

So what of the previous two champions? Why no resistance from them? Estudiantes, winners of the 2010 Apertura, have not been the same since Alejandro Sabella walked out at the end of that title season. Juan Sebastián Verón’s injury woes have left them without their talisman and Mauro Boselli’s move to Wigan robbed them of their most potent goalscorer. Boselli’s back on loan but seems haunted by his experience in the Premier League and El León have gone from mid-table last season to one off the bottom this term.

More telling is the absence of Vélez Sarsfield as a title contender. Over the last few tournaments they have been a joy to watch. Their triple attacking threat of Juan Manuel “El Burrito” Martínez, Santiago Silva and Maxi Moralez was the most exciting frontline in the league. And if they failed there was always the fancy footwork of Ricky Álvarez to unlock defences. Of those four, only Martínez remains, which is strange as for me he is well-suited to European football - strong, skillful, versatile and with a rocket of a shot. This goal’s not too shabby:

In the plight of Vélez lies the Argentine dilemma. Build an excellent team, as Ricardo Gareca did with El Fortín, and they are dismantled, the best parts sold off to the highest bidder. This usually happens in two ways. You get the decent players who look well suited to the league and River or Boca swoop to pick them up and then you get the really good, normally young, players, who pack their bags for Europe. At Vélez it all started with the departure of Leandro Somoza to Boca, the no-nonsense central midfielder proving one of the stars of their title tilt. Then Álvarez (Inter Milan), Silva (Fiorentina) and Moralez (Fiorentina) caught the plane to Italy at the end of the season. And who can blame them? Not only does a move to Europe promise a huge pay rise, it’s also a way to test themselves against the best players in the world.

Unlike in Brazil, where Neymar recently signed a contract extension with Santos, Argentine clubs can’t fight the lure of Europe. Boca can hold it off longer than most but there comes a point when even they are powerless. The only solution is to concentrate on youth development and hope the production line of talent doesn’t dry up. No team is better at this than Vélez and after a shaky start this season they’re already on the road to recovery, despite a chastening defeat to Liga de Quito in the semi-final of the Copa Sudamericana this week. In their new-look midfield the new generation is making itself known in the form of Iván Bella and the excellent Héctor Canteros (right), who’s looking like one to watch for the future.

For Boca, although they haven’t been great, they’ve certainly turned a corner. Keeping faith in Julio César Falcioni has payed off and now they’ve got something to build on. They’re still too reliant on the genius of Riquelme and Viatri fails to convince as a number 9 but with reports leaking out that Santiago Silva is unhappy in Italy and seeking a move to Boca, you wouldn’t bet against them adding the Clausura to the trophy cabinet as well. Vélez will be stronger next season too, but for all his experience, the 35-year-old Guille Franco is not the answer up front. With a few new faces they can give Boca a run for their money.

Where Are They Now - Ariel Ortega

2011-11-21T09:48:00.010-03:00

It was on a school trip to the 1998 World Cup in France that I first saw El Burrito in the flesh. To an impressionable 15-year-old preoccupied with sneaking bottles of Kronenbourg when no one was looking, Ariel Ortega made a lasting impression.

We only saw one game, and yes, it was a mismatch. Argentina v Jamaica at the time was effectively like feeding a poodle to a lion, no offence to Robbie Earle’s Reggae Boyz. Although Gabriel ‘Batigol’ Batistuta may have stolen the headlines with his hat-trick of characteristically bombastic finishes, it was Ortega that dismantled Jamaica in the 5-0 win. Author of the first two goals and architect of two of Batistuta’s, try as they might to kick him to pieces, the Jamaicans did not get near him that day.

Watching these highlights, Barry Davies sums up the buzz around the Jujueño at the time - that he was the heir apparent to El Diez, Diego Maradona. The first to pull on the coveted number 10 shirt after Maradona’s suspension for a failed drugs test in 1994, Ortega started as Argentina lost what was perhaps the best game in a wonderfully entertaining World Cup in the second round to Romania. Four years later, and with a year of European football experience under his belt, he was ready to carry the hopes of a nation.

So similar to Maradona in his glorious dribbling skills, exquisite set pieces, and wonderful vision, he also inherited the bad parts of Diego’s genius. To go with the always questionable haircuts and his own hand of god moment there was and still is the drug dependency issue and the seemingly unstoppable urge to self destruct. It was this last quality that people remember Ortega for in that tournament. His almost comical headbutt on Edwin Van der Sar somehow floored the giant Dutchman and spoke louder than all the flashes of inspiration that had gone before. It was just three minutes after the little donkey’s indiscretion that Bergkamp fired home the golazo that sent the Argentines home at the quarter-final stage.

Fast forward 17 years and the terrible barnet continues to dog El Burrito but more serious for his career has been his largely unsuccessful battle with alcoholism. Talk of the national team is long gone and this season finds the 37-year-old trying to rebuild his career for the umpteenth time on loan at Defensores de Belgrano, in the Argentine third division. The precociously talented boy from the north west signed for River Plate at just 15 years of age, and he remains to this day a millonario. For all the criticisms that can be levelled at the Nuñez club, they’ve stuck by Ortega through thick and thin, and there has been a lot of both.

Before he left for Europe in 1997 he was already a River legend, for moments like this goal and all-round match-winning performance in a 3-0 drubbing of eternal rivals Boca in La Bombanera. In Europe he had successful spells with Valencia, Sampdoria and Parma and was making a mark with fellow countryman and former millonario, Hernán Crespo, in Italy when River took him back as punishment for Parma's non-payment of Crespo’s fee. He won a title in his second spell at El Monumental with the clausura in 2002 and shone alongside new kids on the block Javier Saviola and Pablo Aimar.

An ill-advised move to Fenerbahce arguably started the downward trend. After an international in 2003 he went AWOL, refusing to return to the Turkish club. The breach of contract earned him a four-month ban from the game. In 2004 he joined Newell’s Old Boys before returning for his third spell at El Monumental. But in just his first season back he underwent treatment for alcoholism. In early 2007 he fell off the wagon again, and again in 2008 when Diego Simeone sent him out on loan to Independiente Rivadavia with a spell in a Chilean rehabilitation clinic part of the deal. Independiente chucked him out but he always came back and there was always a moment of genius after which all was forgiven.

This winner against Chacarita in 2009 was perhaps his last magical moment for River. It's fitting that it was a lob, along with the chip, a discipline in which he was an absolute master. January 2011 saw him shipped out to All Boys where he struggled for fitness and to hold down a regular starting spot. And now he finds himself with Defensores.

At 37, the chances of a return to River are slim and most players of his vintage have already hung up their boots. With El Burrito the worry is what would he do if he were to give up the game. Doubtless we’ll find out soon enough but before then he’ll have at least one last shot at greatness. Defensores have been drawn against River in the inaugural Copa Argentina on December 7. What better stage on which to have his final golden moment.

The Fall of Román

2011-11-15T13:58:00.007-03:00

You would think having a large hand (literally) in the worst event in your club’s history would be the lowest of ebb in a player’s career. Not so for Adalberto Román, who plumbed new depths during River Plate’s return to El Monumental on Sunday.

The last time the Paraguayan centre back took to the field in the white and red of River Plate he inexplicably handled the ball in his own box in the first leg of the relegation play-off against Belgrano de Córdoba. River went on to lose 2-0, a deficit they failed to turn over in the return and they went down for the first time in their history. It’s safe to say Millonarios fans were not too happy with him.

On Sunday, Matías Almeyda gave him his chance for redemption as River played their first game at El Monumental since being banned due to the violent scenes that followed their relegation. Both Almeyda and Román probably wish he hadn’t. Things started badly for River against Atlético Tucumán. The usually excellent Carlos Sánchez sloppily gave the ball away in the Tucumán half and the side from the North West broke like an invincibles-era Arsenal and with just six touches from three players sliced through a static River defence.

Román was exposed for pace in that goal but so were the whole River backline. For Tucumán’s second he took centre stage. Again the visitors bypassed the River midfield as if it wasn’t there and Román’s attempt to cut out the through ball to César Montiglio was laughable. He looked like an old man stretching to pick up the remote control from the floor as the ball skipped by, not a yard away from his feet. By this stage only 22 minutes had gone and the hapless Román did not return after the interval. Here are the goals:

On the one hand you’ve got to feel sorry for the lad, the fury of 50,000 rabid River fans is not the nicest thing to have directed at you. But at the same time, he’s only got himself to blame. The hand ball may have been a momentary lapse, an instant of madness, but his display against Tucumán was just very poor defending. I’d be surprised if he ever pulls on a River shirt again.

As well as condemning them to their second defeat of the campaign, Román’s return coincided with a glimpse of the bad old days of River last season. Generally they’ve been a team transformed this year, and they remain second, three points off the top. The main boost has not been the lower quality of the Nacional B, which, like the Championship, is a very tough league to get out of (as Rosario Central are finding out), but the almost complete renovation of their squad. The likes of Buonanotte (Málaga), Pavone (Lanús), Carrizo (Lazio) and Lamela (Roma), have all gone, and in their stead Almeyda has built a team which is, to my mind, far better than the one that got relegated.

The earlier mentioned Sánchez’s arrival from Godoy Cruz has given them the movement and invention they lacked in midfield, Alejandro “El Chori” Dominguez has excelled at number 10, Fernando Cavenaghi has been banging the goals in and, in 17-year-old Lucas Ocampos, they may have another star on their hands. It would take a brave man to bet against their return to the big time at the first attempt. Well unless Román becomes a regular starter again...

In other news Alejandro Sabella will be hoping for better than the disappointing display against Bolivia as Argentina take on Colombia in the heat of Barranquila this evening.

Argentina - Sabella's Wingless Wonders

2011-11-11T09:49:00.003-03:00

Argentina hates wingers. Flyers, jinkers, touchline-huggers, professional crossers, keep walking, there is no place for you here. John Barnes’ immortal advice that “there’s only one way to beat them, get round the back”, fell on deaf ears in this corner of South America and under Alejandro Sabella, that doesn’t look like changing.

Throughout domestic football in Argentina you’ll see more number 10s than a page of binary code, but when it comes to wingers, barely one. Players with the gift of the gambeta are invariably forced inside, to either play as a number 10 or as a striker. Getting wide and crossing the ball in is shunned in favour of neat, intricate interplay in the central part of the final third, with perhaps a striker or enterprising full-back stretching the game a little at times.

This sideline phobia extends to the national team as well, now under the care of ex-Estudiantes boss and former Blade, Alejandro Sabella. The honeymoon period has been brutally short for the new coach. On a high after hammering a very poor Chile side 4-1 in his first World Cup Qualifier in charge, Argentina travelled to Venezuela days later and produced an embarrassingly hopeless performance to hand the hosts their first ever victory over the albiceleste.

Everyone had a shocker that night, including Sabella. Playing a 3-5-2 that rapidly regressed to a 5-3-2, no one on the pitch seemed to know what they were doing. And this incompetence was at its worst in midfield. Javier Mascherano was having a brave stab at doing the work of three men as Ángel Di María looked lost and José Sosa may as well not have turned up.

The width was supposed to be provided by full-backs Marco Rojo and Pablo Zabaleta, but we’re not talking about Roberto Carlos and Cafu here. As both failed to get forward enough, Argentina’s play was hopelessly narrow and with Venezuela packing the midfield they found space hard to come by. Sabella’s first choice side for tonight’s game with Bolivia would be a 4-3-3, with the only faint glimmer of width coming from the inclusion of Inter Milan’s Ricky Álvarez at the expense of Sosa. Zabaleta will again be expected to push forward but luckily for Argentina, his counterpart on the left, Clemente Rodriguez, needs no encouragement to bomb on.

Looking like a latino Yul Brynner, Rodriguez has almost been playing as a winger for Boca this season, such is their dominance in this so far unbeaten campaign. He could be the key to defeating a Bolivian side who are likely to park the bus when they arrive at El Monumental, just as they successfully did in La Plata in the opening game of the Copa America, even having the temerity to score a goal as well.

Up front Sabella’s been forced to change things around at the last minute, with his expected attacking triumvirate of Kun Aguero, Leo Messi and Gonzalo Higuaín (who between them have scored 17 goals in the last month) spoiled by Kun picking up an injury in training. In comes Javier Pastore, who will probably play just behind Messi and Higuaín. Although it’s a shame not to see Aguero this is a great chance for El Flaco, the PSG maestro.

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, Pastore has been a regular in the squads of the last three Argentine managers without breaking into the first team. An effortless, willow the wisp of a midfielder, the ex-Huracán hero has every right to feel hard done by considering his remarkable form in Italy. Again he’s not likely to provide much width. He plays best when allowed to roam wherever he pleases, which makes it difficult to accommodate both him and Messi in the same side. But with Mascherano making the tackles and Fernando Gago doing the simple stuff in midfield, it could just work.

Sabella will be looking for a morale-boosting win ahead of the tricky trip to Barranquila to play Colombia on Tuesday. If they get an early breakthrough it could be a hammering, if not, another frustrating evening awaits for the new coach.

Boca Turf War to Overshadow Title?

2011-11-04T14:03:00.006-03:00

After seasons of being rubbish, Boca Juniors are strolling to their first title since 2008, but events in the stands are threatening to spoil the party. In mafia-like scenes, rival hooligan bosses are set to go head-to-head in a turf war that could get very messy.

Last weekend’s win over Rafaela put the Xenieze eight points clear with six games to play and saw the return to the Bombanera of an unwelcome guest, Rafael Di Zeo. Former head of La Doce, Boca’s feared barra brava, Di Zeo has been away from football for over four years. Most of that time has been spent in prison. In 2007 he was sent down for his part in a battle with Chacarita fans in La Bombanera in 1999. Since his release earlier this year he has tried and failed to become a club member but Sunday was the first time he has shown his face at a game.

And it was far from a quiet entrance. Holding court outside the ground before the game, he and his cronies allegedly smashed security cameras before transforming the stand opposite La Doce HQ into a rival barra. The rest of the game was spent with both stands trying to out-sing each other and exchanging threats across the insignificant 100 yards or so of grass on which a game of football was taking place.

In Di Zeo’s enforced absence from La Bombanera, Mauro Martín has risen to head of La Doce and is in no hurry to stand aside and let “the King” return to power. As ever, the key to the dispute is money. Although never officially recognised by the club, La Doce are given a large share of the tickets for every game to sell as they wish. Di Zeo has claimed all he wants is the same privileges as Martín, but to give them to him would be, in effect, to legitimise two barras.

On Thursday the first steps were taken to avert a war when both men were brought before a judge to answer charges relating to last Sunday’s game. As a precautionary measure the judge banned both from all football games in Argentina while the proceedings against them continue. Sounds good in theory but with the charges extremely flimsy (Martín was brought in for making a throat-slitting gesture during the game, while Di Zeo stands accused of inciting violence through songs) it seems unlikely this uneasy truce will last for long.

On the pitch, meanwhile, Boca have been marching mercilessly towards the title. It’s not been particularly pretty but giving Falcioni time to build a team has really paid off. The man who lifted the Clausura title with the unfancied Banfield in 2009 looks set to repeat the feat with Boca. The main difference this season has been the spine of the team. Falcioni brought back former favourite Rolando Schiavi to marshal the defence and added Vélez midfield enforcer Leandro Somoza to the ranks. The new-look, solid Boca have conceded just three goals all season.

Further up field it’s no coincidence Boca’s resurgence has coincided with the improved fitness of Juan Román Riquelme. He may be playing at walking pace but he remains the best player in Argentina by some distance. Particularly important has been his relationship with galloping left-back Clemente Rodriguez. A budget Roberto Carlos, Rodriguez has been one of Boca’s biggest attacking threats this season. By the time Riquelme succumbed to injury a couple of weeks ago, Boca were well on their way to the title and as an added bonus, youngster Nicolás Blandi has been a revelation up front. Here are his two goals against Rafaela.

This weekend sees Boca travel to Velez, hoping to see the title out without the presence of Martín or Di Zeo in the stands. Superb last season, champions Vélez have been hit by the inevitable loss of some of their best players. Santiago Silva (Fiorentina), Ricky Alvarez (Inter Milan) and Maxi Morales (Atalanta) have all left and Ricardo Gareca is only now beginning to build something again at the Amalfitani. A middling domestic season has been brightened by their performances in the Sudamericana where they're well-placed to progress to the semi-finals at the expense of Santa Fe.

Copa América 2011 - An Ode to Uruguay

2011-07-25T00:05:00.012-03:00

Fifteen Copa America titles, two World Cups, three-and-a-half million people. Yesterday Uruguay became the most successful side in Copa América history as they beat Paraguay 3-0 in El Monumental, but how do the Uruguayans do it?

The first winners of the World Cup defeated Paraguay in a manner that epitomised their appeal. Well-organised, well-drilled, physical, tenacious and with two superstars up front, the hapless Paraguayans, without a win to their name in this Copa, had no answer. Of the 11 Uruguayos that walked onto the Estadio Monumental field yesterday afternoon, eight started in that remarkable quarter final with Ghana in last year’s World Cup. Were it not for injuries to Jorge Fucile and Edinson Cavani earlier in the tournament, there would have been just one change in a year of international football.

And therein lies the secret to the success of this current celeste side. While Sergio Batista chopped and changed for Argentina, seemingly unable to get the best out of his embarrassment of riches, the wonderfully named Óscar Wáshington Tabárez just asked for more of the same from the squad he has spent the last five years building. That’s not to say he’s a one trick pony either. Not many teams could deal with losing a striker who scored 26 goals in Serie A last season, but when Cavani strained his knee against Chile in the Group Stage, Tabárez shuffled his pack, shifting from 3-4-3 to 4-4-2 and if anything Uruguay got better without the Napoli star.

All international sides have their associated stereotypes; the Germans are efficient, the Brazilians entertaining, and the Uruguayans dirty. In 1986 they clocked the fastest red card in World Cup history as José Batista got his marching orders after less than a minute for attempting to snap Gordon Strachan in two in one of the dirtiest performances ever seen in the competition. And while they don’t hit that level of skullduggery, this Uruguayan side has plenty of bite. You wouldn’t want to mess with Egidio Arévalo Ríos or Diego Pérez, the bulldogs at the heart of the celeste midfield. And at centre-half they have two defenders very much of the no-nonsense variety in Sebastián Coates and Diego Lugano.

The dark arts brings us nicely to Luis Suárez. Rightly or wrongly he was villified for attempting a bit of goalkeeping practice against Ghana in the World Cup but that’s by no means the worst of his misdemeanours. In November of the same year he was banned for seven matches for biting PSV Eindhoven's Otman Bakkal and he spends large parts of every game throwing himself to the floor or yelling in the face of the nearest opposition player or official.

That said, on his day he is unstoppable, and yesterday was his day. From the first whistle to the last he was unplayable. There’s not much finesse with Suárez but like a lizard he somehow manages to wriggle out of the tightest situations and above all else he is a goalscorer. It was him who broke the deadlock; after a criminal error from San Lorenzo’s Néstor Ortigoza, the ball found it’s way to Suárez’s feet. A neat switch from right to left bought him some space and his shot was deflected in.

Poor old Néstor, the big man was already lucky not to have been punished after a handball in the opening minutes should have led to a penalty. He was out-of-sorts from then on, unable to find a red-and-white shirt for love nor money. After the goal Uruguay continued to dominate and just before half-time they got the moment they were waiting for. Diego Lugano may captain the side but it’s his namesake, Forlán, who has the heart of the nation. Reeling from the break off of a rather strange engagement to professional bikini-wearer and occasional TV presenter Zaira Nara, Forlán had yet to score in the tournament until Arévalo Ríos slipped the ball into his path and he guided an unstoppable side-foot past keeper of the tournament, Justo Villar.

Forlán had been playing well throughout the Copa but had not looked himself in front of goal, missing some simple opportunities on the road to the final. But just before the end of the game he got to double his tally for the tournament, with a Uruguayan golazo. A triangle of Cavani, Suárez and Forlán sealed Paraguay’s fate. Cavani’s pass was nodded perfectly into the Atlético Madrid striker’s path by Suárez and he slipped it wide of the onrushing Villar.

And with that Uruguay were champions. On Argentine soil they surpassed the 14 Copa América titles of their more illustrious neighbours, capping a great year for Uruguayan football, which also saw Peñarol making it to the Copa Libertadores final. And despite what some would have you believe, they did not do it playing ‘anti-football’. They may be a counter-attacking team but when they’re on song Uruguay play some great stuff, unlike the Paraguayans, who’ve looked leaden-footed all tournament. And that’s it for what has been a strange old tournament. Here's all the action from the final. I’ll run through the best bits next time.

Copa América 2011 - Disappointing Semis

2011-07-19T11:31:00.009-03:00

Giant-killing is great, but what happens when all the giants are dead? Over the weekend the mighty fell, one by one, leaving four Davids to fight it out in the semi-finals with not a Goliath in sight.

Alright so the David tag is a little harsh on Uruguay and Paraguay but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would have picked Peru or Venezuela as possible semi-finalists at the start of the tournament. It’s certainly not the final four the sponsors would have wanted with Brazil, Chile and Argentina all absent. With them go three of the four real superstars of the Copa - Messi, Neymar and Alexis Sanchez. Only Diego Forlán remains.

With the possible exception of Peru, all of the semi-finalists got through to this penultimate stage with a counter-attacking game plan and various degrees of luck, ranging from a little to Venezuela, who really should have headed to the casino after knocking out Chile. That means we’re not really looking at classic games heading into the semis. I’ll be in La Plata tonight for new tournament favourites Uruguay against Peru. Tomorrow sees Paraguay take on Venezuela.

So how did we get here? The madness began on Saturday afternoon with Colombia against Peru. The Colombians having been more solid than expected in the tournament and the Peruvians proving a revelation, with Hamburg’s Paolo Guerrero their star. After a dull first half, Colombia took control in the second, with Dayro Moreno causing all kinds of problems and winning a penalty that would have proved decisive. But for the fact Radamel Falcao dragged it wide. There was time for Moreno to almost break the crossbar before we went into extra time. A howler from Colombian keeper Luis Martínez put the ball at the feet of Carlos Lobatón who smashed it home for 1-0 Peru. A poor clearance from Martínez led to Juan Vargas sewing things up with another thunderbolt.

Then it was time for the big one, nextdoor neighbours and ancient footballing rivals, Argentina and Uruguay. This was the game of the tournament. A pulsating match played in front of fanatical support, on a good pitch in Santa Fe, with two goals, two disallowed goals, two sendings off and penalty kicks to top it all off. In a ferocious first-half Uruguay were in front after five minutes, Ruso Pérez tapping in after a great save from the unlucky Romero. It took a little over ten minutes for Argentina to strike back. A delightful cross from Messi left Higuaín with no option but to head home. After that it was a tale of two red cards and two goalkeepers. If Pérez’s sending off before half-time looked harsh, Mascherano’s three minutes from time was beyond belief. The amateur dramatics from Luis Suárez didn’t help his already sullied reputation.

Heroics from both goalkeepers followed in the second half and into extra time as Argentina piled on the pressure but Uruguay looked equally dangerous on the break. And then to penalties, where Fernando Muslera is becoming a specialist. He saved two in the World Cup semi-final against Ghana and almost repeated the feat here. Javier Pastore’s kick somehow squirmed under him but one save was enough, pushing out a tame effort from Tévez as Uruguay put away all their pens with near-German efficiency. So that’s it for the hosts. Massively disappointing but they can’t really fault the team. Barring their horrific defence Argentina played well but were edged out by a tenacious Uruguay side.

Next up was Brazil, fresh from waking up against Ecuador, against Paraguay. Now Paraguay have not been the same team in this tournament as the one that caused Spain so many problems in the World Cup. With Roqué Santa Cruz dropped for being a complete donkey, the only shining light going forward has been left winger Marcelo Estigarribia, who made Dani Alves look like Justin Edinburgh the first time the teams met, in the group stage.

Learning their lesson, Brazil stuck the superhuman Maicon in for Alves and Paraguay’s number 21 had far less joy. In fact as the game went on it was a case of Brazil against Justo Villar in the Paraguayan goal. The new Estudiantes keeper made the best possible first impression in his new home of La Plata, pulling off a string of amazing saves, the best to deny Pato from 10 yards with an outstretched leg. And so to penalties.

Now I’ve already had a moan about the La Plata pitch and it does appear to be getting worse. But, my whining is nothing compared to the Brazilians as they conspired to miss all four of their penalties. Elano and Andres Santos both sent theirs out of the stadium and into orbit, Fred dragged wide and Villar saved from Thiago Silva. A humbling defeat for Brazil that at least served to cheer up the Argentines in the crowd.

And last but not least there was Chile against Venezuela. Now Chile coach Claudio ‘Bichi’ Borghi is an easy man to sympathise with. He won the Clausura in 2010 with a very limited squad at Argentinos Juniors then got the usual short-term appointment at Boca. He’s pretty funny in press conferences and seems an all-round good guy. Taking over from Marcelo Bielsa who is a hero in Chile after their exploits at the World Cup was never going to be easy. But for my money Chile have looked the best team at this tournament. Borghi’s added patience to their kamikaze approach and Alexis Sanchez has been showing people what all the fuss is about.

But despite all this, they're out of the tournament, and I still can't work out why. Poor old Bichi. Shocked by an early goal from Predator-lookalike Oswaldo Vizcarrondo it took them an hour to get level, hitting the bar twice on the way before Mr Potato Head, Humberto Suazo, finally crashed home the equalizer. Chile looked like the only side who would go on to win it until Claudio Bravo spilled an easy ball in the box and Alejandro Cichero knocked it in with ten minutes to go. And that was that.

And so to the last four. Personally I can’t see Peru upsetting Uruguay. The celeste are too organised at the back for that and with Suárez and Forlán up front, they’re always likely to get a goal. But there’s a chance of an upset in the other semi-final. Venezuela have been dangerous going forwards all tournament and Paraguay have been disappointing. The albirroja start as favourites but maybe Venezuela can pull off yet another upset. When the two met in the group stage it was one of the games of the tournament:

Copa América 2011 - Argentina Arrive, Finally...

2011-07-12T11:53:00.007-03:00

It’s about time and it was only Costa Rica but, whisper it, Argentina actually played well last night. After struggling to get through Bolivia’s wall of defence and then being extremely lucky not to get beaten by Colombia (mainly thanks to the miss of the tournament), the Albiceleste are finally starting to look like a team.

Sergio Batista’s erratic decisions were starting to look increasingly like his predecessor’s but yesterday he shuffled his pack and got it right. Targeting the four most ineffective members of the team, he wielded the axe. Out went the aimless dribbling of Lavezzi, the ineffectual Carlos Tevez, the invisible Ever Banega and the out-of-sorts Esteban Cambiasso. In their place he built a midfield with a bit of purpose and added a targetman front.

The revelation was Fernando Gago. Injured and out of favour at Real Madrid, Gago sat alongside Mascherrano in the centre of the park and provided the distribution that the team had lacked. Spraying fast accurate passes, Messi was able to concern himself with things higher up the pitch. La pulga made up the rest of the midfield with the outstanding Ángel Di Maria. Breaking from midfield with pace and precision, Costa Rica had no answer to the Real Madrid winger.

Up front in came Sergio 'Kun' Agüero, so often the nearly man at tournaments he is now the top scorer in the Copa America 2011, bagging a brace in this game. His movement was markedly more intelligent than that of Tevez and Lavezzi. And alongside him, Gonzalo Higuaín was welcomed back. Don’t get me wrong, Higuaín missed three absolute sitters in the game but Argentina look so much better with a proper centre-forward there.

There was a new maturity as well. Batista had spoken before the game about the need for patience if the goal didn’t come early, and that’s exactly what his players gave him. For the first 44 minutes Argentina had a huge amount of possession, as against Bolivia, but here you got the feeling it was a matter of when not if. And just before half time the goal came. A well struck volley from Gago was deflected and the keeper pushed the ball out to the waiting Aguero. Not a classic by any means but exactly what the team needed.

In the second half it was the Messi show. Freed up by the excellent performances of Gago and Di Maria alongside him, the little number ten picked up the ball in the hole, time and again, and drove straight at the Costa Rica defence. As they threw defenders at him he swayed this way and that before sliding his team-mates in with perfectly weighted passes. Agüero’s second and Di Maria’s goal were carbon copies. Messi drawing defenders towards him before putting the ball on a plate for his team-mates. Lavezzi on as a sub and Higuaín were both guilty of missing similar gift-wrapped opportunities. Here are the goals:

So what next for Argentina? They ended the group in second place, after Colombia beat Bolivia on Sunday courtesy of two goals from Radamel Falcao. That means they’ll face the second-placed team in Group C in the quarter-final, which opens up the tantalising possibility of a Rio de la Plata derby with Uruguay. The celeste currently sit in a surprising third behind Peru and Chile going into today’s games. I’m off to La Plata to see them face the ragged-looking Mexico this evening, a game they should win. Currently they have two points with Chile and Peru who meet earlier this evening both on four. A Chile win would send them through in second while a draw would leave them needing to beat Mexico by two clear goals. A draw would be enough to qualify as one of the best third-placed teams and thereby avoid a tie with Argentina but that could also set them up for a game with Brazil.

The good thing is the Copa is finally warming up and for my money, I’d still have the hosts as favourites...

Copa América 2011 - Wake Me Up When it Starts

2011-07-04T11:45:00.004-03:00

Four games, three goals, so far the Copa America has been an insomniac’s wet dream. If you’ve been following the action this weekend you will have yawned your way through 400-odd minutes of the most uneventful football this year. And there’s not even been anyone ripping up the stadium for a bit of light relief.

Friday saw Argentina doing their best to lose to Bolivia, Ever Benega’s spectacular own goal was only cancelled out by an absolute beauty by Sergio Aguero. In the aftermath Batista strenuously denied being a big Barcelona groupie after his poor man’s copy of the Catalan club had repeatedly failed to break down a limited but resolute Bolivia side. It wasn’t pretty, but if you’re a Bolivia fan, who cares? As an admirer of Jack Charlton’s Ireland side, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with nicking a goal and then sticking 11 men behind the ball in my opinion. Below are both the goals in all their glory:

Every second of the game has been analysed since the final whistle blew on Friday night with the most believable rumours suggesting El Kun and Palermo wonder boy Javier Pastore will be brought in for the next game against Colombia, probably at the expense of Banega and Lavezzi. But the biggest talking point for me was the state of the pitch at the Estadio Único. As well as not paying any tax, it’s another thing we’ve got Bono to blame for. A handful of mega gigs at the stadium, most notably by U2 left the game on Friday night looking more like a kickabout on no-man’s land rather than an international football match.

And if you thought Friday was bad, the snore-fest between Columbia and Costa Rica on Saturday really took things to a new level. To put things in perspective, Costa Rica are rubbish and this is their Olympic team rather than the full strength version. And they had a man sent off in the first half. But still Colombia had no interest in doing any more than the absolute minimum. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a crushing lack of ambition since Tottenham solved a striker crisis by signing Andy Booth. They pretty much spent the whole match passing the ball sideways, despite having possibly European football’s hottest property in Radamel Falcao up-front. Argentina won’t be quaking in their boots at facing either of these sides. Here are the ‘highlights’:

And so to Sunday and the hope that a bit of samba magic from the Brazilians might kick-start the tournament as Group B got underway. Well in the first ten minutes it looked like it might happen, with Neymar, Robinho and Pato scampering all over the place and Venezuela struggling to cope with them. But things soon settled down into a recurring theme of Brazil having plenty of possession and making the wrong decisions when it came to the final ball. Miraculously Neymar managed to stay on his feet for most of the game, but aside from that there weren’t many positives for the Seleção. The game ended 0-0:

The best was saved for last. Still talking comparatively here but Ecuador and Paraguay served up a decent game of football. Plenty of attacking endeavour, it was the final touch that was lacking. Most obviously when Christian ‘Chucho’ Benítez barreled his way through the Paraguayan defence and then opted to go round the keeper instead of just putting his foot through it. Ecuador will definitely be more pleased with the point and they were good value for it. Paraguay looked a little rusty but there were hints that Roque Santa Cruz may be coming back into form as he thundered a drive from 30 yards in the first half and then forced a great save out of Marcelo Elizaga with a header in the second. Brazil and Paraguay will stay strong favourites to finish as the top two in this group.

Today its the turn of Group 3, probably the toughest but by no means a group of death. It’s the first chance to see two of the World Cup’s surprise packages, Chile and Uruguay. Uruguay shouldn’t have any problems seeing off Peru, but the most interesting aspect of today’s games will be how the walking disaster that is Mexico perform. In the lead up to the Gold Cup, five players tested positive for a banned substance and were ruled out of the squad. Apparently it all had to do with eating some dodgy meat (we’ve all used that excuse), but Mexico still went on to win the cup in fine style, seeing off USA in the final.

But that’s not the juicier scandal. Mexico are playing an under-22 side in this competition and while the squad was in Ecuador for a friendly eight players invited four ladies of ill-repute back to their hotel rooms (footballers aren’t great at maths, are they?). After complaining their belongings had mysteriously gone missing their story came out in the open and that’s eight players who will be playing no part. Their replacements come from the Under-20 group making this an incredibly youthful squad. Charged with bringing this disaster into shape is Spurs’ Gio Dos Santos. It’s a big task but he showed against the USA that he, for one, is in fine form (amazing commentary in this clip):

Copa América 2011 - How Argentina Needs It

2011-07-01T12:09:00.009-03:00

The Copa América is here! And about time too. Messi and co kick things off against Bolivia this evening charged with the responsibility of lifting a country that is just about fed up with football.

As the River relegation saga rolled on with tales of death threats made to the referee at half-time in Sunday’s game with Belgrano, and attempts by the club to claim millions of dollars back from former president José María Aguilar, the name of Argentine football was further blackened by ugly scenes following Gimnasia’s relegation at the hands of San Martin de San Juan yesterday. The football-loving Argentine public could do with a bit of cheering up.

A game against Bolivia to get the tournament started at the brand speaking new Estadio Único should be just the tonic. Not a footballing powerhouse at the best of times, La Verde have been going through a lean old period of late. They finished one off bottom in the qualifying table for the 2010 World Cup and haven’t made it past the first round of a Copa América since they lost to Brazil in the final on home turf in 1997.

With all but five of the 23-man squad plying their trade in the mother country, one weapon the Bolivians could use is familiarity, but we’re scraping the barrel here. The highest profile export is probably Marcelo Martins, who after a stellar performance in the Copa Libertadores with Cruzeiro moved to Shakhtar Donetsk in 2008. But the Ukrainians didn’t seem too impressed, loaning him out first to Werder Bremen and then last year, to Wigan.

And then, we have Argentina. What can you say about the Argentine side? It’s a bit like an Alfa Romeo - looks amazing but it’s liable to fall to pieces at any time. Just like at the World Cup the albiceleste have a squad brimming with talent but an eccentric coach threatening to ruin it.

Looking a bit like a Judas Priest roadie, Sergio Batista seemed a breath of fresh hair at first after the pure madness of Maradona. He has plenty of calibre with the country’s younger sides, famously winning Olympic gold in 2008 and many of his decisions have been pretty sound, welcoming back Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso from the cold, being the main one. But as the Copa América got nearer he started to go a bit weird. As Maradona brought in the idea of a home-based national squad, so Batista went one better and added a third national selection, composed of players under-25 plying their trade in Europe, with an eye on the next World Cup. This was the side that performed disastrously in recent games against Poland and most of all the controversy-ridden fixture with Nigeria.

Ok, so there’s nothing wrong with being a bit ambitious, but that’s not all. In the build-up to the Copa América Batista hinted time and again that Carlos Tévez would not be included in the squad for tactical reasons before at last relenting and letting El Apache sneak in at the last minute. Despite having possibly his best season in Europe with Man City, Tévez still divides opinion in England. Not in Argentina. Everyone loves Carlitos. To leave him out would have alienated the nation as well as missing out on a real matchwinner. But in a complete U-turn from Batista, not only is he in the squad, he also starts today.

At the same time as showing Carlos the cold shoulder, Batista also said the door would stay open for Juan Román Riquelme, regardless of whether he was playing or not. A great player, no doubt, but Riquelme has been out injured most of the season for Boca, returning for small cameos before picking up another knock. Thankfully he saw sense on both of these and Tévez is in and Román is out.

But these are trifling matters, more important is his obsession with Spain and Barcelona. Hooked in by the mysterious cult of the ‘false nine’, Batista has set about building a team of speedy midgets with Messi as its focal point. Don’t get me wrong, it would be great for Argentina if they played like Barcelona but sometimes you have to admit that football is a game of horses for courses. The Argentine midfield is not blessed with the passing ability of that of Barcelona or Spain, not even close to it. Neither do Argentina have flying full-backs like Dani Alves crucial to the system.

What they do have, which Barcelona lack, is a proper number 9. A striker who can score goals and hold the ball up for others - Gonzalo Higuaín. A hugely consistent performer for La Seleccion over the last few years, if I were him I’d feel pretty hard done by to miss out. But he does for this game at least as Batista goes with three little men up front. Messi in the middle, Tévez and Napoli’s Ezequiel Lavezzi at his sides. I don’t really get Lavezzi, a bustling little player, he’s like a better version of Steve Stone but Batista loves him, along with Valencia’s Ever Banega, who I have never seen play well in an Argentina shirt.

With Colombia and Costa Rica making up the rest of Group A, Argentina shouldn’t find it hard to get to the quarter-finals, even with these issues. But just as in the World Cup, it’s when they come up against the bigger nations that they could have trouble. For now, the country’s hoping for a morale-boosting and comfortable win to push football’s darker side out of the headlines, at least momentarily. Vamos Argentina!

Cry me a River - River Plate Relegated

2011-06-27T17:03:00.007-03:00

It happened. It actually happened. And in the most prosaic way possible. There was no hand of Grondona, no bribed officials, River Plate lost 3-1 over two games of football against Belgrano de Córdoba. It almost felt like the workings of a normal football league.

Well, until a minute from the end anyway. That’s when the crowd violence began. In scenes that were depressingly predictable, River fans started to tear up their own stadium, hurling parts of the antiquated wooden seating at the Monumental down onto the pitch. Common sense won out over regulations and with one minute of normal time still to play and River two goals adrift on aggregate the ref stepped in and stopped the fight. River were down.

Like a team full of 1990-era Gazzas, the River players were bawling their eyes out even before the game was called off. Whether this was in mourning over their wage packets, fear over hooligan reprisals or actual distress at going down, who knows? As they cradled each other on the field, the Belgrano squad was left to sprint from the pitch under a hail of missiles from the terraces. For once it was a good thing the Monumental pitch is so far away from the stands.

Rioting continued outside the stadium where fans attempted to storm the dressing rooms, the offices of club officials and anywhere else they could fight their way into. Both fans and players from the Córdoba side were kept in the ground for hours after the game for their own safety. It may be a minority of people involved in these incidents but it’s a pretty big minority. Violence is the cancer of Argentine football and it shows no signs of going away after a campaign where Huracán were forced to play their home games behind closed doors and a game between Vélez Sarsfield and San Lorenzo was suspended after the death of a fan.

The kind of people who trashed the Monumental would have done it regardless of circumstances but there are deeper reasons behind the anger of most normal Millonarios than simply relegation. The drop to the Primera B Nacional is just the last step on a road to destruction that has seen one of the two giants of Argentine football go from glory to crippling debt. Under the presidencies of José María Aguilar and Daniel Pasarella, the club have increasingly lost control of their own finances.

The involvement of River’s barra brava, Los Borrachos del Tablón, has grown from an influence to a stranglehold with tales of hooligans on the payroll. On the field six managers contributed to the three years of pain that left River in the promoción places. Money from the sale of talents such as Radamel Falcao was misused and the players who took to the pitch in the two promoción games showed just how far the team has fallen.

No width, no pace, no creativity, no organisation and with Matías Almeyda suspended, no passion. That sums up the team that drew with Belgrano on Sunday, attempting to turn over their 2-0 deficit from the first leg in Córdoba. Even then they almost managed the feat. An early goal from Mariano Pavone was followed by a siege on the Belgrano goal but with no imagination going forward they were hit on the break by Belgrano. After a warning from César Pereyra, who should have scored, a calamitous piece of defending presented Guillermo Farré with an opportunity he duly stuck away to make it 1-1. An iffy Pavone penalty would have made things interesting with River only needing a draw to preserve their status but his scuffed effort straight at the keeper just about summed things up.

And so next season there will be no superclásico. As much as Boca fans are delighting in their rival’s misfortunes, their own barra brava will be cursing the lost revenue, as will AFA and the tour companies that make huge amounts out of these two fixtures every year. Next season they’ll join another of Argentina’s mis-managed big clubs, Huracán who also went down with a whimper on Wednesday.

In a sorry end to the Argentine season, it is perhaps a silver lining that the rules weren’t bent to keep River up. However the fact that the natural order was allowed to progress is seen as a good thing shows the dire straits domestic football is in in Argentina.

River Plate, to the B or not to the B

2011-06-17T16:35:00.007-03:00

Looking like a member of the Ku Klux Klan who has washed up on the wrong end of the American continent, this little chap is actually impersonating el fantasma de la B. The crude Casper costume represents the ghost of relegation to the Primera B Nacional, hanging like the sword of Damocles over River Plate as we head into the final round of games.

Last week, adorable lummox Martín Palermo played his last home game for Boca Juniors, amid the requisite ocean of tears and gushing tributes and Velez Sarsfield managed the small feat of winning the clausura title, a well-deserved achievement for the best side in Argentina. Two momentous events in Argentine football but the big story was, as it has been all season, the possible relegation of River Plate.

I spoke in a previous blog about the last time this was on the cards in 1983, but I'll go over it again. River were looking set for the drop when AFA moved the goal posts. With the millonarios one place off the foot of the table, it was decided that relegating a team for one bad season really was frightfully unfair, so the promedio system was introduced. Basically a team’s points total over three years (that’s Apertura and Clausura for each year, six seasons in total), is divided by the number of games played to come up with an average number of points per game.

The new system led to River’s survival but now it puts their position as one of the three teams never to be relegated (along with Boca and Independiente) in danger. In the Clausura table they sit in a comfortable eighth place and they finished the Apertura in fourth. Hardly relegation form this year then. But, 2008-09 and 2009-10 were such dreadful years that going into their final game, at home to Lanús, they are in real danger, not of the straight drop (reserved for the bottome two clubs), but of having to play the promoción. This is a two-legged play-off between the teams who finish in 17th and 18th and the fourth and third-placed teams from the Primera B Nacional and I’ve covered before how unfair that is. The winner plays in the Primera Division next season.

OK, now for the complicated part. So here’s how things stand at present. Quilmes, Gimnasia and Huracán, the three bottom clubs, are fighting over 18th place, and the chance to play the promoción rather than a direct drop. River are up against Olimpo and Tigre in the battle to lift themselves out of the bottom four and avoid playing the promoción. As things stand, Olimpo are in 17th, with River in 16th and Tigre 15th, and if all three lose Olimpo will go down. But that is the most boring outcome.

One of the quirks of the promedio system is at this stage, points for Olimpo are worth more than they are for River and Tigre. As they are newly-promoted this season, the Bahia Blanca club’s average is decided off the back of 38 games, rather than 114 for the other two (from three seasons). The upshot is that should River and Olimpo both win tomorrow, their averages will be identical. And to make things even more ridiculous, if Tigre draw, all three of them will be on level pegging. That could lead to a three-way tournament, or if all three win, a play-off between Olimpo and River, a real David v Goliath match that would be. So whatever happens, the fate of the millonarios is not in their own hands, they must keep a close watch on events in the Quilmes v Olimpo game.

But wait, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Now Argentina is a country that loves a good conspiracy theory, but when River Plate and the Julio Grondona-controlled AFA are involved, you can’t blame them. Grondona was in charge the last time the system was changed to save the Nuñez club and he spoke out this week saying: “I have the feeling that River won’t play in the promocion.” To those raised on European football this statement is beyond belief, for the head of the local football association to comment on such a thing is at best grossly unprofessional and at worst a hint at the corruption most suspect him of. But this is Grondona, vice-president of that well respected body, FIFA, and president of AFA since the beginning of time. Few would be surprised if the goalposts are moved again tomorrow.

Mascots of the Copa América

2011-06-09T10:02:00.013-03:00

Since the dawn of time international football tournaments have had mascots. No one knows quite why but that’s not the point, it’s the law. If there is not some kind of cartoonish character, hopefully playing on national stereotypes, which can be turned into a costume large enough for a man to fit in, it’s not a real tournament.

My personal favourite is also the first one I can remember, Italia 90’s very own Ciao. A stickman whose limbs appeared to be made up of bits of Blackpool rock in the colours of the Italian flag, he also had a football for a head. Like all great mascots it is simple, bizarre and easy for a 7-year-old to draw on their pencil case.

While the World Cup is the spiritual home of the mascot, the Copa América has had its own little cheerleader since 1987. And with less than a month to go before South America’s international football tournament arrives in Argentina, it’s time we all got to know the frankly terrifying Suri (see above). He may look like a stretched-out, bug-eyed version of pingu, but the creature soon to inhabit the nightmares of children the length of the continent is actually a ñandú or rhea bird.

Rheas are basically mini-ostriches and look almost nothing like Suri, which is the Quechua name for the bird. As mascots go it’s pretty hopeless, especially when compared to some of its antecedents. Here are my five favourite Copa América mascots:

1. Gardelito Argentina 1987

Before the aberration that is Suri, Argentina started the mascot trend in the Copa América with the charming little Gardelito. Based on the king of tango, Carlos Gardel, that winning smile could melt any heart but what sadness is hiding behind those black-hole eyes? Maybe the dapper little chap could foresee his side’s failure. Despite winning the World Cup just a year earlier and boasting the attacking talents of Diego Maradona and Claudio Cannegia, a fourth-placed finish was all Argentina could manage as neighbours Uruguay took the title with them back across the Rio de la Plata.

Here's the goal that won the tournament. Dodgy keeper:

2. Guaso Chile 1991

Scoring top marks in the easy-to-draw stakes is Guaso, Chile’s bizarre but beguiling mascot for the 1991 tournament. Looking like the kind of thing a toddler would scrawl on the wallpaper in crayon, Guaso is supposedly based on a huaso, the Chilean brother of Argentina’s gaucho, who in turn is the cousin of the cowboy of the United States, or something like that. Sadly, just like Gardelito he didn’t bring the home nation a huge amount of luck. Chile came in third as the noisy neighbours from the other side of the Andes, Argentina, took the title.

Here's the game of the tournament, Argentina beating their great rivals, Brazil, 3-2 in the second phase:

3. Choclito Ecuador 1993

Ecuador went political with their mascot in 1993. With genetically modified crops on the rise throughout the world, Choclito was a glimpse of a terrifying future where giant ears of corn roam the streets, playing football as they go. Thanks to the watchfulness of the Ecuadorians this dystopian nightmare is yet to pass, and choclito remains simply a picture of a corn on the cob with eyes and a mouth playing football. Ecuador finished the tournament in fourth place as a Gabriel 'Batigol' Batistuta-inspired Argentina beat Mexico 2-1 in the final to retain the title.

4. Tagua Paraguay 1999

At first glance he looks like a friendly little fellow but with that outstretched palm, Tagua is really telling you to jog on while he sips from his gourd of tereré and plays keepie-uppie by himself. The tagua is an endangered wild boar type beast which is native to Paraguay and its borders with Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil. Top marks for simplicity, but does the presence of two props - the gourd and the football - overcomplicate things?

Despite being a breath of fresh air at the previous year’s World Cup in France, where only a last-gasp golden goal by Laurent Blanc separated them from eventual winners France, they got no further than the quarter finals at home. Brazil romped home as winners, with Ronaldo and Rivaldo both hitting five goals in the tournament. Along the way they gave Venezuela one hell of a beating:

5. Guaky Venezuela 2007

You have to love Guaky, a completely phoned-in effort. The essential elements of a mascot - some kind of animal, flag colours, team shirt - have been thrown together with so little craft that it is admirable for its sheer can’t be arsed-ness. I could have come up with it. Well, no, I couldn’t but a moderately talented 12-year-old could. And it turns out it was actually designed by a Venezuelan schoolboy, but I bet he wasn’t even trying at the time. Guaky is short for Guacamayo, a tropical bird which the internet tells me would be called a macaw in English.

Now Venezuela is a country with a lot of problems, most of them more important than football, but nevertheless football is still one of them. The national side are, and pretty much have always been, rubbish. They’ve never made it to a World Cup and expectations weren’t high before the tournament, but they did manage to top their group. Then they got thumped by Uruguay in the quarter-finals. In the final a Brazil side without Kaka and Ronaldinho beat Argentina 3-0. Allowing Messi and co plenty of possession, they picked them off on the break, most notably with their superb final goal:

Superclásico Sunday

2011-05-17T16:39:00.012-03:00

The great Hunter S Thompson once described the Kentucky Derby as decadent and depraved, God knows what he would have made of the superclásico. Outlandish, corrupt and hopelessly sentimental, it is one of sport’s most ridiculous occasions and as such, one of its best.

The juggernaut of hyperbole that is Boca Juniors v River Plate finally rolled into the Bombonera on Sunday afternoon for an inevitably disappointing game of football, but you wouldn’t know it listening to the herculean efforts of the TV commentary team.

With three in the commentary box and three men pitch side every triviality was given industrial strength analysis. Commentators in Argentina are ludicrous characters. If you follow the Premier League here you will be treated to a host of improvised songs celebrating goalscorers (check out Juan Manuel ‘Bambino’ Pons and his ode to Ronaldo) or even the amusing spectacle of the commentators trying to identify famous ex-players in the crowd. Mistaking Les Ferdinand (far right) for John Barnes (far left) at Spurs games is becoming a regular occurrence. King of this army of clowns is Marcelo Araujo.

Looking like a younger Christopher Lee after a few too many pies, Araujo is the terrifying anchor of Fútbol Para Todos. On Sunday his huge face loomed over no fewer than five of Argentina’s free channels, his voice ranging from a sombre baritone to a quivering falsetto. By the time the game kicked off we’d already seen Juan Martín del Potro in the crowd cheering on Boca, a woman yelling "la puta que te parió" and heard from the reporters stationed behind both goals to pick up on fan reaction while trying to avoid the hail of lighters, coins and saliva from the crowd.

For such a huge game Marcelo had to be at his best, and he was. This was commentary at its most stereotypically South American, with ‘r’s being rolled as far as the eye could see. Juan Roman Riquelme became 'Rrrrrrrrrrromaaaaan' and Paulo Ferrari, 'Ferrrrrrrrrari'. He even went bilingual, with bizarre shouts of “Yes! Yes! Yes!” as Pablo Mouche won a corner and “yellow card” was said in such a sleazy way it was as if Tony Montana had stumbled into the commentary box. Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for. The pesky Mouche swung in a corner from the left and Juan Pablo Carrizo in the River goal decided to slap the ball into his own net. Goal, 1-0 Boca.

Now, there is a science to the infamous latin american commentator’s goal celebration and in the Argentine version it comes in three parts:
1. Gol - This is a short syllable, spat out quickly and almost inaudibly. It buys the commentator a second to take a breath for what is coming next.
2. Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool - this is the famous lung-busting exclamation that regularly goes on way past the ten second mark, perfect for when you’re making a cup of tea, and you know to run back in for the replay.
3. GooooooooooooooooldeBooooooooca - Somewhere inbetween the length of the first two is the third ‘gol’ with the team who scored it crowbarred onto the end in the same breath.

Here's Marcelo to show us how it's done:

But the first goal was a small blip on the emotional richter scale compared to what came next. In his final superclásico before retiring at the end of the season, the lumbering ox and occasional genius that is Martín Palermo got the goal he had been dreaming of. In recent weeks his goals have been both sublime and ridiculous and this one fell midway between the two, a cute header over Carrizo’s head. Needless to say Marcelo went mental over this 'eternal' goal, or in his own words: “Con gol del eterrrrno, Martín Palerrrrrmo”. There were tears in the crowd and tears from Martín himself.

And that’s the way it stayed going into the break. Half-time analysis in Argentina is actually pretty good, a no-nonsense run through of the main incidents of the half with a few words from Julio Ricardo. Every great comedian needs a straightman. Ball has Cannon, Morecambe has Wise and Marcelo Araujo has Julio Ricardo. When the grey-faced JR pops up at half-time you are tempted to adjust the colour settings on the TV but the funureal pallor is all his. Once he’s done his schtick there is some bizarre propaganda (FPT is owned by Cristina), and usually an equally strange birthday shout out. I remember during half-time in one game a little montage wishing happy birthday to Dustin Hoffman on behalf of Fútbol Para Todos, I’m sure he was touched.

In the second half River huffed and puffed to little effect and the fireworks were saved for the last ten minutes. Marcelo called for silence amongst the TV masses. Something important was happening. The board was raised and on it was the number 9 of big Martín, the hero was taking his final superclásico bow and Marcelo made sure we enjoyed every second of it. Five minutes later and Riquelme departed to another rapturous ovation followed by an in-depth investigation over exactly who he gave high-5s to on the bench and whether he hugged Palermo or not.

It wouldn’t be the superclásico if the final whistle went with 22 men on the field, so Clemente Rodriguez and Matías Almeyda obliged and conspired to reduce the numbers, both picking up reds for a fracas in injury time. It was as if the two players knew they weren’t meeting the drama quota and sacrificed their place on the pitch to satisfy the god of the superclásico. Almeyda won extra points for kissing the River Plate badge on his shirt in the direction of the Boca fans and scuffling with the riot police shepherding him off the field.

So that’s it for this year. Quite a song and dance for a match between a team fighting relegation this year (River) and a team that could be in danger of it next year (Boca), but hey, that’s what makes the superclásico so great.

Vélez - A Lesson to Argentina's Big Boys

2011-05-04T19:21:00.006-03:00

It is no coincidence that the most successful Argentine teams of the last five years have been the most stable, Vélez Sarsfield and Estudiantes. And when Vélez thumped the La Plata side 4-0 in their own backyard on Saturday evening, they made a third title in six years a real possibility for the model Argentine club.

Ricardo Gareca may only have been in charge of el Fortín since 2008, but in Argentine football that is a lifetime. In fact that epic three-year reign makes him the second-longest-serving coach in the Primera División. He is only pipped by Jose Santos “Pepe” Romero, técnico of All Boys, and they have only come up again this season.

In that same period Boca have gone through no fewer than eight bosses (including caretakers), and the current incumbent, the vulture-faced Julio César Falcioni (right) is unlikely to last beyond the end of the season. River for their part have hired and fired five, but seem to have found something approaching stability under Juan José “Jota Jota” López this season. For Estudiantes, Alejandro Sabella seemed to be building something special after a Copa Libertadores win in 2009 and a narrow defeat to Barcelona in the FIFA Club World Cup. Then, in February 2011, he walked out on the club, refusing to shed light on his reasons for leaving.

His departure has left Estudiantes struggling to recover, despite playing in the fancy new Estadio Único. But Vélez go marching on. On Thursday they travel to Quito with a three-goal cushion, seeking to book a quarter-final place in the Copa Libertadores. It’s a success that it is hard to begrudge, they really are a likeable club. While River and Boca dominate the headlines with Ariel Ortega's latest misdemeanour and whether Riquelme is happy or not, down in Liniers, Vélez quietly go about their business.

They play good football, too. That might have something to do with their ground, the Estadio José Amalfitani. Definitely one of the best and most modern stadiums in the league, it boasts something almost no other club in Argentina can claim - a good pitch. The standard of playing surfaces in top-flight clubs really is appalling. River Plate have the biggest stadium in Argentina, El Monumental, which will host this year’s Copa America final, but the pitch is a cabbage patch. It would be difficult to find a League Two surface in England on which the ball bobbles more. The rest of the grounds aren’t much better. But at the Amalfitani, the ball rolls true, helping the swift passing moves orchestrated more often than not by Vélez’s impish number 10, Maxi Moralez.

Vélez’s golden era came in the mid-90s, under the stewardship of first Larry David look-alike, Carlos Bianchi, and then Osvaldo Piazza. They claimed three national and five international titles in five years, including the Copa Libertadores and the Intercontinental Cup in 1994, beating AC Milan 2-0 in the final. The financial power of Brazilian teams at the moment makes it difficult to see an Argentine side lifting the Libertadores this year, but Vélez have the best shot. They just need to harness the spirit of crazy goal-scoring keeper, José Luis Chilavert. The eccentric Paraguayan was a star of that Vélez side, scoring almost 50 goals in his decade in Buenos Aires. Here he is scoring from inside his own half against River in 1996.

Man Overboard - Racing v Independiente

2011-04-23T19:21:00.006-03:00

Football can make you do really stupid things. Just ask the guy who jumped in the moat during Racing’s derby with Independiente last Saturday. Mind you, he probably won’t care, still being on Cloud 9 after La Academia beat their bitterest rivals for the first time in six years.

Despite being soaked he was happy as a pig in the brown stuff, which isn’t too far off what he actually was. Judging by the colour of the stagnant water that surrounds the pitch at the Estadio Presidente Peron, I wouldn’t rule out the presence of the odd number two. He was a big lad as well.

The moat is there to stop fans getting onto the pitch, usually in anger, but there was nothing but unconfined joy for the blue-and-white half of Avellaneda last weekend. Despite a terrible start in which they seemed to be doing all they could to gift Independiente the first goal of the game, Racing rallied and by the end should really have inflicted more pain on El Rojo than the two goals they managed.

When it comes to local rivals, they don’t get closer than these two giants of Avellaneda, a suburb just south of Buenos Aires city limits. Racing’s ground is separated from that of Independiente by just 100 metres (Racing is on the right of the picture). Although it may not be as well known internationally, the passion on display at this derby is every bit as rabid as a superclásico between River and Boca. Even Danny Dyer can’t handle it.

Racing fans are often spoken of as the best in Argentina and after two visits to the Peron, I can see no reason to argue. The ground itself can testify to their support. Also known as El Cilindro, it is no more than 60 years old, but you still feel it might fall down when the hinchada gets jumping and the enormous structure begins to shake. That support is all the more impressive considering the team hasn’t given the fans a lot to shout about over recent years. One of the five grandes of Argentine football (alongside Independiente, River, Boca and San Lorenzo), Racing have won the title just once in 45 years despite regularly drawing some of the biggest crowds in the country.

The three points against Independiente leaves them in seventh place as I write this, four points off the top. No-one in blue-and-white is getting too excited in terms of a title push but stranger things have happened. If Racing can keep the wonderfully gifted, but usually injured, Giovanni Moreno over the winter break and pair him with his countryman Teófilo Gutiérrez up front, then expectation levels will certainly rise. It was Gutiérrez who shone in this game, a wonderful chest trap and lay-off set up the first goal for Gabriel Hauche before he scored the second himself.

Top marks for the choripan I had outside the ground as well, at the minute pipping Central to the best I’ve had at a ground in Argentina. And a special mention for the Racing barra, the Guardia Imperial who produced so many flares before kick-off it was as if you’d wandered into a war zone. Coloured smoke is the stuff clásicos are made of. Below are the highlights:

Fútbol: A Lexicon of Love, Part 2

2011-04-12T10:34:00.006-03:00

6. La Rabona

One of the most outrageous, and frequently useless, skills a player can perform is a rabona. It’s a classic technique for the one-footed-wonder, a way to avoid using your weaker foot through a feat of crural dexterity. Say the ball is to the left of a right-footed player, rather than use his left foot to kick it he twists his right leg around the back of the left in order to kick the ball. If, like Andrés Vásquez, you can do it, it looks amazing, even if reporters don’t believe you did it deliberately and you have to repeat it on the training ground. But if, like Australia’s Nicky Carle, you can’t, it's all rather embarrassing.

As for the etymology, hacerse la rabona means to play hooky or skip school. The story goes that the first person to pull off a rabona was Gustavo Flores in a game for Estudiantes against Rosario Central in 1948. Renowned Argentine sports magazine, El Gráfico, published a cartoon to illustrate the trick, entitled, ‘El Infante que se hizo la rabona’ or the kid who skipped school and from then on it was called a rabona. With no footage of Flores’ trick available, Argentina’s Ángel di María will have to do. Here he pulls off a caño, then a rabona at full pace while he was playing for Benfica.

7. La Bicicleta

Although the term bicycle kick is used in English to refer to a chilena, a bicicleta is something quite different. This is the move for which Cristiano Ronaldo was ridiculed when he first arrived in England, a dizzying succession of step overs not unlike a football version of the age old cups and balls trick, the idea being to disorientate the opponent leaving him with no idea which way the attacking player will go.

Again an Argentine is credited with its invention, or at least for unveiling it in public for the first time. That player is Pedro Calomino, a Boca Juniors hero in the 1910s who as well as being known for his bicicleta, hated football boots and so played in canvas trainers instead. Here’s Chile’s answer to Cristiano Ronaldo, Alexis Sánchez, making a mockery of the Palermo keeper as he scores for Udinese.

8. El Sombrero

To most non-Spanish speakers the word sombrero conjures up an image of a sleeping Mexican wearing a ridiculously large hat, like an extra from a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. In reality sombrero normally just means any kind of hat, except when it comes to football where it relates to the impudent act of lifting the ball over the goalkeepers head to score, a chip as it is known in English. There have been many great exponents of the sombrero in Europe, from Glenn Hoddle, to Eric Cantona, to Karel Poborsky.

The goalkeeper need not be the only one with egg on his face, as lifting the ball over the head of a defender is also called a sombrero. Here it is demonstrated majestically by Pele, in a World Cup final no less. He scored this beauty in Brazil’s 5-2 win over Sweden in 1958, with perhaps the three most assured touches ever taken on a football pitch.

9. La Elástica

Although it wasn’t invented by Ronaldinho, it may as well have been, such is the degree to which the buck-toothed Brazilian has perfected this circus trick. When he performs an elástica it is as if the ball is stuck to his feet. At first he moves his leg right, with the ball glued to it and then in the blink of an eye, the ball rolls onto his toe and he flicks it to the left with a lightning change of direction that would sprain the ankle of mere mortals. The change of direction is so fast from a standing start that this is actually one of the most effective tricks you can use on a football field, allowing you to beat your man in a tight spot, usually on the wing. Here’s how it’s done:

10. La Cuauhtemiña

OK so this one is cheating a bit, but the only player I can think of still playing at the minute with a trick all of his own is the eccentrically brilliant Cuauhtémoc Blanco. The thing is, he’s Mexican, so has no place in a blog about South American football, but I’m not going to hold that against him. I have a very vivid memory of seeing a cuauhtemiña for the first time. It was at the 1998 World Cup in France and I was on a football team school trip. It was certainly enough to liven up a tiny formule une hotel room shared by three 14-year-old schoolboys in the Paris suburbs. The English-speaking media labelled it the ‘bunny hop’ which gives a better idea of what’s involved. When the Mexican number 10 gets himself in a tight spot, he puts the ball between his two feet and hops like a bunny over the outstretch legs of one or sometimes two defenders, taking the ball with him to relative safety. The result is occasionally effective, usually hilarious, but certainly unique. Blanco is probably still pulling it off today, as he plays into his 39th year in Mexico.

Fútbol: A Lexicon of Love, Part 1

2011-03-30T13:00:00.009-03:00

In the Spanish language, there’s a word for everything, and in the world of football it’s no different. When it comes to describing goals, tricks and other embellishments on the football field, English just doesn’t hold a candle to its Castilian counterpart. Our terms are Ronseal in comparison - they do what they say on the tin, but not much more (see backheel, overhead kick, diving header etc). Whether this is because these fancy-dan foreigners are always trying for the spectacular, or just a lack of imagination on our part, who knows?

In this post and the next I’ll run through a few of my favourites, complete with some stunning examples of how they should be executed.

1. La Pared

Let’s start with something simple. One of the cornerstones of flowing football, the 1-2 as we call it English. That is to say when player 1 passes to player 2 while moving to a new position. Player 2 returns the ball to player 1 with just one touch. Here it is known as la pared, which means the wall, player 2 playing the part of the bricks in this scenario. Sounds pretty pedestrian in the explanation but when Messi and David Villa execute two consecutive paredes as they scythe through an army of Villarreal defenders, it’s a little bit special.

2. El Caño

Caño means pipe or tube, like the shape formed by an opposition player’s open legs, through which you put the ball to execute what we would call a nutmeg in England. Massively popular in Argentina, at times you would think this was the aim of football rather than scoring goals, like a giant game of croquet with human hoops. The best caños come from unexpected quarters, like when tough-tackling Argentine defender Juan Pablo Sorín gave regular caño merchant Ronaldinho a taste of his own medecine. The Brazilian didn’t like it much, giving Sorín a girly slap for his impudence.

3. La Chilena

Leaping into the air and swinging your legs to where your head should be in order to kick the ball is about the most you can show off on a football field without flaunting public decency laws. This is what is known as a chilena, or overhead kick to you and me. Peruvians claim to be the first to have exercised the feat and there it is known as la chalaca, after a player from Callao who supposedly created it. In Argentina, chilena is the term you hear, the origin tracing back to Ramón Unzaga. A Spanish-born player who crossed the Atlantic and went on to play for Chile, Unzaga pulled off an overhead kick in the Campeonato Sudamericano in Buenos Aires in 1916. The Argentine press was so impressed they dubbed it a chilena. In the example below Colombian stiker Marco Pérez picks himself up off the floor to score a chilena for Gimnasia, just before his team-mate gets the chance to steal his thunder.

4. El Gol Olímpico

One for Argentines to savour: the first recorded goal direct from a corner came from the foot of Cesáreo Onzar, against nextdoor neighbours and rivals Uruguay. With Uruguay fresh from winning the gold medal at the Paris Olympics in 1924, calling it a gol olímpico just rubbed that extra bit of salt into the wounds. The first olímpico I remember came from the cultured left foot of Republic of Ireland stalwart Steve Staunton in a World Cup qualifier against Northern Ireland in 1993. That’s not got much to do with South American football though, so below is some more Colombian action. Marcos Coll became the first and still only man to score direct from a corner in a World Cup in the 4-4 draw with USSR during Chile 1962. An absolute farce of a goal, but worth watching.

5. La Palomita

In England we call it a diving header, but in Argentina it is quite charmingly known as a little pigeon, poeticising the moment when a player flies through the air to meet the ball with his head. The best known example in Argentina is the Palomita de Poy. A striker for Rosario Central, Aldo Poy sealed his name in Central history with this goal against bitter city rivals Newell’s Old Boys. The two met in the semi-final of the Torneo Nacional in El Monumental in 1971. Poy’s diving header was all that separated the sides, with Central going on to take the title for the first time in their history. Such is the love of the fans for the goal that every December 19 they gather to celebrate it, making it, in their eyes at least, the most celebrated goal of all time. You can just about see it below:

Waving Flags

2010-08-18T00:01:00.007-03:00

You can criticise Latin America for a lot of things, but flags isn't one of them. In the main square of any town of note in these parts there will be a football pitch worth of material attached to a flag pole, usually hanging limp as it takes a force ten gale to get the thing flying. Just check out this monster in Mexico City's Zócalo.

In Argentina, the flag, or bandera is such a big deal they built a scary fascist monument to it in the city where it was born, Rosario. And Argentina's third city is where I found myself on Saturday to watch Rosario Central's first home game after their relegation to the Primera B Nacional.

Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was born a Rosarino, and a sports fanatic like him must have been impressed by the welcome the Central faithful gave to their faltering team as they began their attempt at a direct return to the Primera División. Messi was born here too, but he's a Newell's fan so he doesn't count. Just to put things into context, the last time these fans saw Los Canallas (the scoundrels) was a 3-0 home surrender against All Boys in the second leg of the promoción play-off. Central went down with a whimper.

With all that in mind, feast your eyes on this red-hot flag action, includes double-tiering (1:12 onwards):

By the time the teams ran out, the Gigante de Arroyito was rocking with a crowd close to the 41,000 capacity. The picturesque riverside ground would have been full but for the exclusion of away fans in the lower divisions on safety grounds. Central are trying to let away fans in to the Gigante but as yet, their pleas to AFA have gone unheard. Hence the unique atmosphere when visitors San Martín de San Juan took the lead. It was the sound of emptiness, nothingness, like the entire stadium had been placed in a vacuum.

The goal came from a free-kick, deflected off the foot of Central's talisman, Luciano 'Lucho' Figueroa. The striker started his career at the club, where 35 goals in 57 games earned him a 'glamorous' transfer to Birmingham City. Sadly Steve Bruce didn't like the cut of his jib and he was sent back across the Atlantic after just one first team appearance. He had two more cracks at breaking Europe with Villareal and Genoa then came back, cap in hand, for a loan spell with Boca before moving back to his boyhood club last season.

Plagued by a knee problem, the 29-year-old Lucho has lost any pace he once had, but he still knows where to shove his arse, elbows and any other suitable bodypart to maneouvre defenders out of the way. He atoned for his own goal with a scrappy second-half equalizer for Central. Despite a lot of huffing and puffing they never looked like scoring a winner. Their problem is the same one they had last year, scoring goals. Superior in most areas of the pitch they just couldn't make enough clear cut chances. San Martín are far from mugs and looked favourites for promotion last year before falling away badly in the second half of the season, but on the evidence of Saturday's game, Central could struggle to make an immediate return.

On a side note, props must be given to Los Canallas for the great variety and quality of choripan available outside the ground. I spotted at least six different salsas and, if my eyes did not deceive me, even salad...

Back to the Primera División. On Monday, a bank holiday to commemorate the liberator of Argentina and poster boy of the 5 ARS note, José de San Martín, Independiente somehow managed not to beat Argentinos Juniors at the Doble Visera. After a ding-dong first half of end-to-end action in which El Rojo equalised through Federico Mancuello just seconds after Gonzalo Prósperi had given Argentinos the lead, the second half was all Independiente. Only the miracles performed by Nicolás Navarro in goal for Los Bichos kept the scores at 1-1.

Elsewhere, the two giants in danger of relegation this season won again. Racing came back from a goal down at the Bombanera to win 2-1 and prove once more that Boca are terrible. Riquelme was still out at the time but has since signed a new contract. Meanwhile boring, boring, River yawned to another 1-0 victory at Huracán. Vélez, Estudiantes and Banfield also kept up their 100 per cent records and Olimpo notched up the first win for the new boys, beating Gimnasia at home.

All About the Sarmientos

2010-08-10T23:53:00.009-03:00

FPT is back! Not bigger, not better, just more expensive. Argentina's Apertura 2010 limped into action on Friday evening, just over a month after the World Cup ended on July 2. With no football worthy of note, the only thing to get the pulses of the football-going pubic racing was the amount they were asked to fork out at the turnstiles.

Prices in the popular, or terraced sections, in Argentina are set by AFA. And this year they decided to hoick them up by a massive third, from 30 to 40 ARS. If you are not a member or socio you have to pay a charge on top of this, known as a bono. This is also pretty regular at 10 ARS. As a result it now costs 50 ARS to get into a primera division game in Argentina, lightening your wallet to the tune of the purplish note pictured, bearing the mugshot of one Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, or to give him his wrestling name, The Educator.

At the time of writing, 50 ARS equates to £8.08, or $12.72. Not much to see a top flight game in the eyes of most foreigners, but a lot here. For the average Argentine it equates to about half a day's pay (facts based on purely anecdotal evidence). And what do you get for such a big outlay?

1. A concrete step to stand on
2. No protection from the elements
3. A ground with pretty much no facilities
4. No police protection once you are inside
5. No chance of leaving until the away fans have gone
6. Known and subsidised hooligans to left and right
7. A view obscured by the fence put there to keep fans off the pitch

Don't get me wrong, I have no desire to see the introduction of Emirates-style comfy seats and prawn sandwiches para todos, and I like the old-school nature of Argentine grounds, but sometimes you have to question exactly what it is you're paying for. There's little doubt that the clubs will receive almost nothing from this price rise, most going into the hands of AFA and the dark lord of Argentine football, Julio Grondona.

Grondona has been the top man at AFA since 1979, 31 years! Most national football associations are populated by inept, doddery old men, but over three decades takes the biscuit. Appointed during the dictatorship, the return of democracy, the Malvinas conflict and the 2001 financial crisis have all come and gone with Grondona still holding the reins of Argentine football.

For my part, I dropped a Sarmiento to get into the Diego Armando Maradona to see Argentinos Juniors start their title defence against the team they beat on the last day to clinch the Clausura, Huracán. When a small team does well in Argentina it's normal for the vultures to swoop and liberate them of all their best players. The Bichos have suffered less than most, retaining their two stars, midfield pairing Juan Mercier and Nestor Ortigoza, but they couldn't hold on to boss Claudio Borghi.

El Bichi took the well-trodden path to the Bombanera and the inevitably unrealistic expectations that come with accepting the poisoned chalice of being Boca coach. Livewire striker Ismael Sosa was only on-loan last season and he has also gone, leaving Argentinos with, realistically, only two good players. On Saturday one of those, Ortigoza, was injured and it left a huge hole in the team. A hole which Huracán exploited twice in five minutes in the second half to come from behind to secure a 2-1 victory in what was a thoroughly forgettable game.

Elsewhere, the new-look River Plate looked a lot like the old River, struggling to string three passes together against Tigre at El Monumental. But they scraped a last-minute win through the Torneo's answer to Peter Crouch, Rogelio Funes Mori. Meanwhile at Boca, no one really cares what's going on on the pitch at the minute, all eyes are on Riquelme (as usual) and whether he will finally sign a contract extension. They started their season with a draw with Jade Godoy Cruz in Mendoza.

None of the division's new boys could get off to a winning start, but Quilmes managed to get a home point against Colón. All Boys and Olimpo lost to Racing and Banfield respectively. Velez beat Independiente 1-0 in the opening weekend's big match and should have won by more. Estudiantes got under way with a good away win at Newell's and will be strong contenders for the title again this year, despite the departure of Clemente Rodriguez to Boca and Mauro Boselli to Wigan, of all places.

We'll fight them on the plane...

2010-05-31T23:12:00.003-03:00

The World Cup is so close now that if I start thinking about it I can't sleep. Imagine if Christmas only came once every four years, lasted a month and was less like a fat man giving out presents and more like 32 countries fighting it out in the world's most popular and best sporting event. Sadly, I'm not going. I can't afford it. If only I was an Argentine football hooligan, then I could get a free trip there...

La Selección flew out to South Africa this week, with 23 players, a sort of manager (my mate Maradona), various coaches and officials, and... a group of 22 barra bravas. All on the same plane. Just as teams have official doctors, chefs, and the like, so Argentina has its official group of hooligans. For the country it is embarrassing, pathetic, but sadly, not surprising.

And that's not all, reports are that 250 more are arriving on Monday, representing their various clubs with the usual shameful mix of racketeering and violence by which they make their living here. Whether sides are directly giving the barras money to make this journey or they are using the 'salaries' they receive from the clubs I don't know, either way, Argentina is playing for its worse side to show itself in South Africa. There are even rumours the government are implicated.

The AFA moved to deny that it was anything to do with them, shoving hands in pockets and whistling distractedly. Their main line was that, as they didn't charter a plane, it was a public flight and anyone could have been on it. It's just a coincidence the barra bravas were there. Yeah, nice one.

Anyway, I'm not going into the whole barra brava issue as it's huge and many people know a lot more about it than me. Far more exciting news this week came in the form of the sleeping arrangements of Maradona's squad.

With an odd number of players, El Diez had to pick one player to sleep solo. Who did he go for? None other than Carlos Tevez (right). Maybe it had something to do with his face giving his team-mates nightmares, but my money is on Maradona saving the rest of his squad from Carlitos' singing. Apparently Maradona and Tevez sang to the team bus as they drove to Ezeiza airport before their flight. What a treat.

Elsewhere La Pulga (the flea) Messi has been paired with Juan Sebastián Verón. Presumably so that La Brujita (little witch) can impart some of the wisdom he gained on dealing with pressure during his spells at Manchester United and Chelsea... Champions League hero Diego Milito will get the chance to slip something into Gonzalo Higuaín's bed-time cocoa as he teams up with the Real Madrid striker who he must dislodge to start in the World Cup.

In domestic news, in all the excitement of Argentina's 200th birthday party and the two-day holiday that followed I didn't get a chance to mention the very exciting and eventful promotion/relegation play-offs. For the second year in a row Rafaela just couldn't make it past Gimnasia. After a well-earned first-leg victory for the team from Santa Fe, the two sides played out a frenetic and hugely entertaining return leg in La Plata which Gimnasia deservedly won, although it could have gone either way.

The big news was at the Gigante de Arroyito in Rosario, where Central were blown away by Floresta's amusingly named All Boys. After a 1-1 draw in Buenos Aires, Los Albos took the five hour bus to Rosario and thumped their more illustrious rivals, 3-0. I have a soft spot for Central but, with the odds so stacked against the teams from the Primera B Nacional, it's a breath of fresh air to see a team from the second tier get through. It will also give me a chance to go to the Islas Malvinas stadium (above) and keep my mouth shut.

Next week, how Argentina can still win the World Cup, without Cambiasso AND Zanetti...

Globo Warfare

2010-05-18T21:59:00.008-03:00

Half-time at Huracán. Argentinos Juniors are a goal up and strolling to the title with the help of an obliging Globo side. The till rolls thrown by fans in the stand have accumulated into a giant pile at the foot of the Huracán end. Kids treat the papery mess like snow, chucking it at each other and generally having a right old laugh. Fast forward 45 minutes and the same paper is on fire, seats are flying, the air is thick with acrid tear gas and the riot police are coming towards us, batons raised, like some kind of futuristic death squad. Football in Argentina can seriously damage your health.

The game is over, Argentinos are champions but no one near me has noticed. There's a running battle going on in the semi-circular popular behind Huracán's goal. Hinchas sprint from one side to the other, attacking the police then running away, like an annoying little brother. We retreat to the back of the stand, not knowing if it's more dangerous to stay or go. The police are now 20 yards away and a 14-year-old fan gets batoned to the ground. Time to go.

We get down the stairs easy enough and it seems the worst is over. Then we are met at the gates by six more riot police, leaning forwards in battle stance, batons at the ready.
"Dale! Dale! Vamos!" they shout.
We do as they say and hurry out. In the wasteland behind the ground we can see fans fleeing as the police follow, firing rubber bullets as they go. It's like a paintball game gone terribly wrong. We move in the opposite direction, to what we hope is safety.

Again there is something like calm as fans are channelled down a small street. Just as we are congratulating ourselves on getting out unscathed, shots ring out again. Not 15 yards behind us the police start to charge, forcing the crowd up the street. No time to think about it, just run. Fast.

So why did it happen? I don't know. It came out of nothing. There was no trigger. Huracán were terrible in the game and two of their players, including captain Paolo Goltz were sent off. This didn't seem to bother the fans in the slightest, after both of those decisions there was a ripple of disapproval and nothing more.

Five minutes before full-time, with the game won by Argentinos, 50 or so hinchas made their way down the terraces to the fence behind the goal. First they climbed it, then they shook it, then they dismantled the burger stands and laid siege to it. The fence caved. Stupidity and insanity seem to be contagious and more of the hardcore came down to join their mates to take on the police, who had left the stand at the first sign of trouble.

What was left of the burger stands was thrown over the partition behind which the police waited, gathering their troops and biding their time. The exasperated stadium announcer summed it up perfectly as he pleaded with fans:
"Guys, you are destroying your own house!"
As things got worse tear gas was fired into the stand and the water canon came out. Then the worst of all happened, the police entered the stand.

It's hard to say whose stupidity angered me more. The fans who started a riot for no reason, with children all around in the stand, or the police who took it as an excuse to smash some heads and overreacted completely. The fans weren't going to fight each other, the police's intervention made things a hundred times worse.

The bottom line is violence in football in Argentina is a real problem. Unless the police and AFA start learning some lessons, there could easily be a disaster at a game here. By the way, Argentinos won 2-1 to lift the title. I'll write a proper blog about the season next week.

Diego and Me

2010-05-10T21:51:00.009-03:00

They say you should never meet your hero. I agree, but the chances of me running into early-90s Aston Villa flyer Tony Daley are slim, so I'll just have to tell you about the time I met the greatest footballer ever, Diego Maradona. Last Thursday, at his mum's house.

'But how did you meet the man responsible for this, this and this?' You cry. Well, friends of mine sell signed gubbins for Icons and were in town to meet the little big man. I was having a beer with them on Thursday evening, in Palermo, when they got the call. Maradona's people had spoken to Icons people and the various middlemen who involve themselves in these transactions were all happy, so we bundled into a cab and headed for Villa Devoto, a suburb out by city limits.

The cab driver didn't seem to know where he was going (not uncommon in a city where the only Knowledge you need to drive a taxi is how to spell your own name), but eventually he got us there. We were met by Peter Sellers' long-lost Spanish brother, Jesús, the middleman. The street was no millionaire's row. Upper middle-class, yes, but no great shakes by Buenos Aires standards of wealth. A quick word over the buzzer and we were let in by the housekeeper.

I got ready for a long wait and some kind of invasive or at least abrupt security search. Before I knew it there was movement to my right, I hadn't seen anything but I could sense a presence. I turned round to see a small man with a huge head in a very shiny tracksuit, Diego Armando Maradona. Looking slightly confused by the spectacle but smiling all the while, he shook hands with us all and got down to business.

As the marker pen came out and El Diego started to add his John Hancock to pictures and shirts galore I took a look around. By that I mean I moved my head to look around rather than traipsing through his house like Loyd Grossman. The front room we were in was lifted straight from the Godfather. Pictures of Diego smiled down from the dark wood of the walls. The signing was taking place at a giant table at the end of the room, more suited to the Last Supper than sporting commerce. The walls around the table were covered with stained glass windows and there was a very old-school Catholic theme, down to the giant crucifix hanging from Maradona's neck.

Just as I was admiring a plant pot fixture which had a golden '10' engraved on the marble, the cavalry arrived. First Maradona's mum popped her head out, looking baffled that anyone would travel thousands of miles just to get her son to scrawl on some perfectly nice pictures, and then came the girl I was later told was his girlfriend. I thought it was his daughter, a 20-year-old blonde girl who seemed old for her years and was taking an active interest in all of the signing shenanigans.

At this point, everything had gone amazingly smoothly, and I was wondering what all the fuss was about Maradona's short fuse when Jesús asked him about a planned Argentina fixture in Dubai. Immediately the atmosphere changed, it was as if someone had attached jump leads to him. His arms slapped against his sides, his face played out the saddest and most frustrating story ever told and his lips recounted the devilish greed of the AFA, who had ballsed up a pre-World Cup trip to the Middle East by demanding more money after the contracts had been signed.

Once he'd worked out his anger everything was tranquilo again. Another round of handshakes and we were on our way, elated and in slight disbelief about what had just happened. Opinion is divided in Argentina about the great man, mainly due to the fact he is a hopeless manager, but to my mind there are some achievements which mean any subsequent indiscretions just don't count. Winning the World Cup single-handed, as Maradona did in 1986, is one of them.

But even I find it hard to forgive what Maradona did on Sunday. Like me he was at the stadium that bears his name to watch the team who gave him his first chance, Argentinos Juniors. Unlike me he probably didn't fail the breathalizer test at the turnstiles and have to play the gringo card to be let in (I'd only had two hours' sleep is my excuse). Anyway, what he did do was leave early, the hallmark of a bad fan. At the time the Bichos were 3-1 down, the title slipping from their grasp. With Estudiantes being held at home to Rosario Central in Quilmes at the same time, a win would put the title in Argentinos Juniors' hands going into the final day of the season.

When Maradona left the ground they were a long way from getting back into the game. Independiente should have been home and hosed but the terrible defending and profligate finishing endemic in Argentina means you're always in with a shout. With Argentinos' top-scorer and all-round livewire Ismael Sosa out suspended they took a leaf from Graham Taylor's training manual and route-one'd El Rojo into submission. The Avellaneda club crumbled under the weight of the Bichos' aerial assault and with almost the last kick of the game, skipper Matías Caruzzo scrambled home a deflected winner to make it 4-3, these are the kind of goals that win you titles. La Paternal went mental. Streaming out of the EDAM, fans sang all the way home, car horns parped and flags waved. Victory at Huracán next week and the title is theirs, Argentinos' third ever and the first in 25 years. Vamos los Bichos!

But Huracán will be up for that final game, a clásico, after beating Boca at the Bombanera for the first time in 30 years. Estudiantes, who drew a blank at home to Central, will be without Veron for a last-day trip to Colón after the baldy one gave Central's Martín Rivero a very close-up view of his elbow on Sunday. River get better and better, they eased past Racing, 3-0. Newell's and Velez both had huge wins as they push for places in the Sudamericana, South America's Europa League equivalent.

That'll do for now, I intend to be at Huracán for a big Championship party for Argentinos on Sunday. With a bit of luck I should be able to get into the away end as well. I hope Diego will be there too, as long as he doesn't have any, more pressing, appointments.

Gas! Gas! An ecstasy of fumbling at Chacarita

2010-05-04T00:10:00.010-03:00

There's no place for fence posts in football. Least of all when they are flying from the stands aimed at the linesman's head. That was how it started. The first stoppage, ten minutes before half time. Welcome to Chacarita.

Minutes before play was suspended, referee Diego Abal had given a penalty for handball against Chacarita's Lisandro López. It was a handball, it was a penalty, but it wasn't a sending off. Nevertheless, López got his marching orders, Mauro Boselli scored the penalty to put league-leaders Estudiantes level and Chacarita fell to pieces, conceding a second from a corner, just three minutes later.

The Chacarita hinchas in la platea (not behind the goal) decided they'd had enough. They began to attack the fence bordering the pitch in waves, like a rabid dog trying to break out of a cage. Somewhere in the stand, someone managed to rip up the post and hurl it up, over the fence and onto the pitch, in the general direction of the linesman. It missed him. The linesman picked it up and passed it to the ref, who wandered about with it for a while before giving it to some police chief or other, he took his turn on post watch before it was eventually escorted off the pitch by a club official. With the post finally gone, the fans calmed down and play continued.

But the trouble wasn't over. In the second half, barra bravas in la popular (behind the goal), where I was standing, stole a hose from the fire brigade. They even turned it on and started spraying themselves and then the police. It seemed like just a bit of high jinks from fans preparing for a season in the second division. The game was stopped until they gave it back, which they did eventually. But the game didn't resume.

Suddenly no one outside the barra brava was laughing anymore. People began flooding towards our position by the fence, covering eyes, mouths and noses and complaining of gas. There's something weird about the onset of panic, it's so quiet. You don't hear it, just read it in worried, anxious faces. I couldn't smell much but I did notice my nostrils burning. We stood and waited, as people scaled the ten foot fence, carefully stepping over coils of barbed wire to escape to the relative safety of the platea.

The game had been stopped for ten minutes now and things weren't getting any better. A guy came towards us saying that women and children should get out. He didn't mention cowards in that list, but we took it as an open invitation. We headed for the exit, only to find it blocked by a cordon of riot police, their perspex shields repelling nothing but the cries of children and the shouts of their angry parents.

So back we went to huddle by the fence and hope play would start again. As people looked around imploringly for a way out it dawned on me how unprotected you are at a football ground in Argentina. Once you're in, that's it. There are no police, there aren't even stewards. When times are good this isn't a problem. Everyone's crammed together, all standing, singing and just enjoying the game. But when mala onda (roughly translated as bad vibes) descends, there's no way to feel but vulnerable. And there's no way out. Home fans are kept in the stadium until the away fans have all gone, increasing the feeling of claustrophobia and helplessness even further.

What I was wishing for more than anything was that the police would NOT come in. This only ever makes things worse here. There are countless incidents of situations being aggravated when the police enter the stands. More often than not it just turns into a full scale riot. Thankfully for all involved the game resumed after a stoppage of over 20 minutes. The atmosphere after that was funereal, apt for a team known as the undertakers. See all the non-football action here.

Neither side looked particularly up for it from that point onward either. An Estudiantes side who had disappointed in the first half an hour, going a goal behind to a golazo from Omar Zarif, were handed the game with the red card decision. Already relegated Chacarita showed little sign of coming back and Estudiantes never looked like going on to score more. That was good news for the only two gringos in the stands, god knows what would have happened if it had turned into a rout. Chacarita have one more game to play at the Diego Armando Maradona, their adopted home, before the end of the season and their demotion to the B. Sadly for me and I believe most Argentinos fans, it is goodbye and good riddance to the homeless team from San Martín.

Meanwhile, across town, their altogether more wholesome landlords, Argentinos Juniors, were coming from a goal behind at San Lorenzo to keep their title challenge alive. The star was Ismael Sosa, the man who has done more than any other to keep the Bichos in the hunt for the Clausura. The 23-year-old scored twice to put him just a goal off the top-ranked goleadores, Boselli and Palermo. At the start of the campaign he was not first choice. But since he broke into the side, his pace has given Argentinos an extra dimension. Without him they would have fallen away long ago.

It's now pretty much a duel between Argentinos and Estudiantes for the title, with both Jade Godoy Cruz and Independiente losing. JGC went down to a last minute goal against Central, while Boca again proved they can turn it on when they feel like it, edging a five-goal thriller at La Doble Visera (El Rojo's ground is known affectionately as the double cement visor). Pablo Mouche managed to score a golazo and then get himself not one but two bookings for his celebration.

At the bottom, Racing won again, at Tigre, as they continue their drive to safety. It looks like it will be Central and Gimnasia in the relegation play-offs. River continue their rehabilitation under Angelo Cappa and it was nice to see the winner scored by Diego Buonanotte, who spent Christmas in intensive care after a car crash in which three of his friends died. He's a good little player (5ft 2in) and Los Millonarios have missed out on all this kind of stuff while the pint-sized wonder boy has been away.

Estudiantes sit a point clear at the top with two to play. They definitely have an easier run in than the Bichos with Central at home and Colón away to come. Argentinos welcome Independiente and then go to Huracán on the final weekend. I should be back at the Diego Maradona on Sunday, hoping the Bichos can keep the title race alive and that no one gets gassed, or impaled by flying posts.

Protectionism in Argentine Football

2010-04-26T22:50:00.009-03:00

Argentina's top division is pretty much a closed shop. If you're in, great. Fill your boots, son. You'll have to do something really terrible to get chucked out. If you're on the outside looking in, like Tiny Tim on a freezing winter's day, no chance. The chairmen of the big clubs are inside laughing at your misfortune, eating huge steaks, washed down with vats of Malbec while watching Fútbol Para Todos on TV.

About ten years ago there was a furore in the UK about female golfers not being allowed to join golf clubs. To which the stuffy old members responded that women were permitted to join, under rule 234, part A, sub-section (ix) of the rule book buried under the ninth, it's just that none had shown any interest. This is a bit like Argentina's Primera División. "Of course new clubs are allowed to join," smile the fat cats, "we'll just make it as hard as possible for them to stay there."

So how does it work? Well, the roots of the current relegation system are mired in the stinking protectionism of the big sides. In 1981, San Lorenzo, one of the biggest sides in Argentina, were relegated from the top flight and the old establishment didn't like it. They bounced straight back a year later, but their plight scared the wits out of their peers and the wheels of change had been set in motion. In 1983, the system was changed. Rather than being relegated on a points total based on one season, as in most countries, relegation is now decided on a team's average points total over the past three seasons. Coincidentally, River Plate would have been relegated in 1983 under the old system. No further questions, Your Honour.

The result is that teams coming up from the second division have to have an absolute stormer in their first year to stay up. The chances of giants Boca and River having three bad seasons on the trot are miniscule. The same is true of 75 per cent of the top sides. Imagine the same system in England, Newcastle would certainly not have spent a year in the Championship this season, maybe that West Ham side with Carrick, Defoe et al would have stayed together, etc, etc.

But wait, there's more. The number of teams promoted each year can vary between two and four. The bottom two sides are relegated automatically and the top two from the Primera B Nacional come up. The teams finishing 17th and 18th in the Primera División have a play-off against the fourth and third placed sides respectively from the league below. The play-offs are over two legs, with no away goals AND if the ties end in draws, everyone stays where they are. So all the top flight sides need do is draw.

The argument is that teams should really have to work for their place at the top table, but I don't buy it. It just seems like another way to make the top league exclusively for the larger sides. Last year, only two sides came up. Rosario Central and Gimnasia de La Plata won and drew their respective play-offs to save their skins. And lo and behold, who do we find in the play-off positions for relegation this year? Central and Gimnasia.

With three games to play, the two automatically relegated sides have already had their chips. And who are the unlucky pair? Last season's two promoted teams, Chacarita and Atletico Tucumán (above). To be fair, both sides have been terrible and would still be going down under the English way of doing things. The point is that the average system stretches the amount of time which the top teams have to prove themselves, so one bad season isn't that bad. Therefore the currency of 'the season', as a spectacle, is devalued. That's bad news for all fans, even those of the big clubs. Under the old system, Boca, River and San Lorenzo would all be fighting for their lives in the last three games. As it is, only River have flirted with danger and that was only fleetingly, despite the fact they lie fourth from bottom, just three points off the automatic drop-zone.

Anyway, enough ranting about The Man, it's been another ding-dong week in the Argentine top flight. Having waited for their moment, Estudiantes seem to have timed their sprint finish perfectly, as Paula-Radcliffe-lead-from-the-front-types Independiente dropped points at Huracán. Veron and his cronies beat River in a heated encounter in Quilmes. Estudiantes defender Leandro Desábato really hurt Ortega's feelings with the Wildean quip: "Qué te pasa, borracho?" Or, in English: how's it going, drunkard? With a history of alcoholism, El Burrito didn't like it, and proved him wrong by crashing his car in Buenos Aires at 6am Monday morning...

Both JGC and the Bichos of Argentinos kept their title challenges alive with home victories against poor sides. JGC consigned Chacarita to the drop and Argentinos made it more likely that Gimnasia will face a play-off to avoid the drop. Chances are Central will too, after a display of ineptitude that has to be seen to be believed in the last ten minutes of their game with Tucumán. With survival at stake, Tucumán sent their keeper forward in the final minutes. The corner was awful and with the keeper at the other end of the field, Central couldn't even get a shot in. This is the only footage I could find of it, but it's worth watching until the end.

Racing beat Banfield 2-0 to take them further away from the drop-zone. The win came in a game notable for a miss of Chris Iwelumo proprtions, see 3.55 onwards. Lanús and Newell's both went goal mental. The Spurs fans of Lanús smashed Arsenal 4-1 and Old Boys put five past Colón. In the other two games, Vélez beat Tigre 1-0 and Boca beat San Lorenzo. Palermo scored the second from a Riquelme assist and they even hugged afterwards! Yawn...

Next week the four title hopefuls face some tough games and with a bit of luck I'll be at the Diego Maradona to see if already relegated Chacarita can do their landlords, Argentinos, a favour and beat Estudiantes.

A Change Is As Good As... Three Points

2010-04-21T00:25:00.004-03:00

Managing a football team is a mug's game. The players have all the power. They are the only ones who can really effect a change where it matters most, on the pitch. The thankless job of the manager is to herd this lot of malcontents and instill in them some kind of discipline, all the while knowing his charges could lose him his job in a matter of just three games.

Three defeats on the trot in Argentina and your time's up and many people here believe the players have a big hand in a técnico reaching that magic number. Of course you can't prove these things but suspicions were raised about just how much effort the players of San Lorenzo and River Plate were putting in prior to the departure of their respective técnicos, Diego Simeone and Leonardo Astrada.

With River the change was almost embarrassing. It's hard to put into words how awful they were in the build-up to Astrada leaving the club. Facing them was like playing against the zombies from Dawn of the Dead, they lumber slowly towards you looking old and haggard but they're so slow you can almost walk away from them to safety. In that period they went FIVE GAMES without scoring a goal, four of those were defeats.

And so the players got their wish (allegedly) and in came Ángel Cappa (left), a coach so with it he even has his own blog. All of a sudden River are a team transformed. In from the cold comes the alcoholic El Burrito (little donkey), occasionally known as Ariel Ortega, and lo and behold he seems to have remembered both how to run and how to play football. Jade Godoy Cruz must have been as surprised as anyone when they pitched up at the Monumental to find River passing the ball to each other, running when they didn't have it and even making chances.

The Millonarios dominated the first half but cheeky JGC took a 1-0 lead into half time courtesy of one of the David-and-Goliath-esque counter-attacks which have made them unlikely title contenders. The River of a week earlier would have rolled over at this point, but instead they decided to keep on playing as they had in the first half and hit two goals in as many minutes soon after the break to earn a deserved win. It was their first victory since they beat Huracán a month earlier, the team Cappa took to within a hair's breadth of the Clausura title last year, playing some fantastic football along the way. If he can keep the players happy, things are sure to get better for Cappa and River.

The same goes for San Lorenzo. El Ciclón took a game to find their feet under new (possibly caretaker) boss Sebastián Méndez (right) - losing 2-0 at Banfield - but since then, they have thrown a spanner in the works of Independiente's title challenge and, on Sunday, humiliated rivals Huracán in one of the weekend's two clásicos. Sadly for El Globo their fans showed rather more fight in the stands than the players did out on the pitch - an altercation with the police was broadcast live on TV at half-time (San Lorenzo hinchas had other things to occupy them). By that time Huracán were already a goal down to a rejuvenated San Lorenzo. What little chance they had of coming back into the game disappeared 20 minutes into the second half when Ezequiel Filipetto rightfully received his marching orders for two bookable offences. El Ciclón rammed home the advantage with two well taken goals from Fabían Bordagaray and Cristian Leiva to win what was a tepid derby.

The same could not be said for the Rosario derby, well the first 20 minutes, at least. The game went off like a fire cracker, it was like a PES game between the two best teams with the speed turned up to the maximum. Tackles flew in, no-one strung more than two passes together and somehow Central forced a corner. It dropped comically at the feet of centre-half Diegro Braghieri who had time to nip to the shops and back before smashing it into the corner. El gordo Cristian Nuñez won a very dodgy penalty which was converted by Rolando Schiavi to put the scores level at 1-1 after 15 minutes.

And that's how the scoreline stayed at the Gigante de Arroyito (left), as both sides forgot about winning a football game and just decided to kick lumps out of each other instead. On 34 minutes Lucas Bernardi of Central jumped into a train wreck of a challenge, studs-up, and was rewarded with both a red card and an elbow to the head from Newell's player Mario Paglialunga. Paglialunga was also sent for an early bath. Not wanting to be outdone by his team-mate on the elbow front, Nuñez executed a sickening aerial assault seconds before the half-time whistle, red card number three.

After the break Nahuel Valentini, who should have been sent off in the first half for a stamp, evened things up by picking up his second booking. It ended 1-1 with nine against nine. A derby with all the passion but not the same quality as one or two which took place in England this week.

And so to the exception that proves the rule, Boca Juniors. It's hard to apply any rules to Boca as it is just a circus cunningly disguised as a football club. Abel Alves had been in caretaker charge of the club until the end of the season, when Krusty the Clown is due to takeover. But he was so awful they had to get another caretaker in, youth coach Roberto 'Tito' Pompei (right). Sadly, managing Boca doesn't seem to be as easy as ABC. Tito took the short trip to La Plata for his first game in charge and came back with nothing, as they went down to quite a remarkable Gimnasia goal. An overhead kick or 'chilena' which seemed to be scored by two players at once, but was credited to the Colombian Marco Pérez.

In the title race, it was all change once more. Estudiantes and Independiente both won on Saturday afternoon to displace joint-leaders JGC and Argentinos Juniors. With JGC losing at River, the Bichos could go top if they beat Arsenal away, not really the toughest of fixtures. But they bottled it. Facundo Coria, who I have railed against in the past was again horrific, god knows what dirt he has on the manager/president to keep him in the side. After taking an early lead from a lucky deflection, Argentinos got stage fright and stood by while the industrious Arsenal wrestled the momentum from their grasp, making it 2-1. The home side squandered numerous chances to put the game to bed and it came back to haunt them with the odious Coria scoring a late and undeserved equaliser.

That means the Bichos are still just a point off the top. Sadly the chance of primetime Saturday night TV fame on a BBC game show prevented me from making it to any games last weekend. But that will be rectified. If all goes well I'll see Independiente at Huracan on Saturday night and then Argentinos take on Gimnasia at the Diego Maradona on Sunday afternoon.

URUGUAY UPDATE - the clásico between Peñarol and Nacional ended goalless at a packed Centenario. That means four points still separate the sides and with games running out for Nacional, the title seems to be Peñarol's for the taking.

Where Are They Now - Álvaro Recoba

2010-04-14T23:14:00.020-03:00

As the old saying goes: form is temporary, buck-toothed brilliance is permanent. So it was with great excitement that I heard over the tannoy the name of the man who - along with Daniel Fonseca - has done more than any other to blacken the name of Uruguayan dentistry, Álvaro Recoba.

As well as being excited, I was nervous as I waited for visitors Danubio to emerge at Nacional's Gran Parque Central stadium (below) in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. This was the player I watched blast his way onto the world stage with two amazing goals for Inter Milan almost 13 years ago (courtesy of Channel 4's much-missed Italian football coverage). Football fans age themselves by the generation of players they grew up watching and it never stops being depressing when a player you saw taking his first steps starts to wind down his career and eventually retire. We're all getting older but at least for fans our decaying powers are only witnessed on a 5-a-side pitch in Mile End, the decline of a professional footballer is there for all to see and often it's painfully rapid. So I was desperately hoping Recoba still had something in his locker. He did.

After a first half spent with hands on hips, the classic pose of the aging professional who has dropped down the leagues, he burst into life in the second period. But only after his team-mates had taken on board Recoba's self-imposed limitations. Recoba does not run, with or without the ball. Recoba does not challenge for headers. Recoba does not make tackles, or even attempt anything so vulgar. What he does do is create things of exquisite beauty with one of the finest left feet the game has ever seen.

It's more like a swiss army knife such is the range of useful things it can do. Recoba didn't go through his entire repertoire for Danubio on a gloriously sunny afternoon in Montevideo, but he wasn't far off. A goal kick from the keeper was met first time with a perfect volleyed cross-field pass; a striker was picked out at the back post from 40 yards by a ball dropping inches over the defender's head; and delightfully crafted through balls were flicked, glided, or punched behind the home defence as the situation demanded.

The former Uruguayan international didn't score but the equaliser that dragged Danubio back into the game was at least half his. The away side forced a corner on the right which Recoba took as if he was shooting for the top corner from the edge of the box. The ball was rifled into the area, straight over the first man before dipping to meet the head of Marcelo Silva. It almost burst through the net and into the boisterous away support.

Not only an assist for Recoba, the goal was one in the eye for the home fans who berated him for the entire game. Countless times he was labelled an hijo de puta who really should return to the concha de tu madre. According to a piece in El Pais' sports supplement, Ovación, the Nacional hinchas were peeved because he is mates with arch-rivals Peñarol's captain, Antonio Pacheco (above, they were both at Inter) and has hinted he'd love to play with him again. To put this into context, Recoba used to play for Nacional and it was them who sold him to Inter. But he started his career at Danubio and was only with Bolso for a year. I don't know about you, but I reckon 90 minutes of abuse is a tad harsh for a player who scored 17 goals in his 33 games for the club and then earned them a lot of money when he left.

Recoba's subtle promptings around the edge of the box should have led to an away win for Danubio, but sadly he wasn't playing with Serie A calibre strikers. Instead Nacional snatched all three points late on as Álvaro 'Tata' Gonzalez scrambled home the winner in the last ten minutes. A vital win for Bolso. The previous day, Peñarol had clinched the Clausura title with a 2-1 win over Fenix at the site of the first World Cup Final, the Estadio Centenario. But in the overall table (covering Apertura and Clausura) things are still all to play for. Nacional's win puts them four points behind leaders Peñarol going into this weekend's clasico. A win for the Bolso would make things interesting.

And so to Argentina... What a week it's been. River have sacked their coach, Palermo finally broke the Boca scoring record as Riquelme refused to celebrate with him (they're not mates). Fútbol Para Todos, however, celebrated with possibly the greatest montage of all time. Jade Godoy Cruz and Argentinos have spectacularly leapfrogged Independiente to go joint-top. If it stays this way they'll have a play-off to decide the Clausura champions, as in Argentina you can't win the title on goal difference. I'll go into more of the ins and outs next week. Not sure what game I'll head to this weekend, as the title and relegation races hot up, but a trip to Tigre to see title-hopefuls Estudiantes looks tempting.

Atlanta! Who are they?

2010-04-05T23:03:00.007-03:00

The thing about obsession is you never see it coming. One minute you're watching your team play in possibly the finest league in the world, the next the sun is burning one side of your face as you sit on the unforgiving concrete terraces of Atlanta, a third division side in Buenos Aires, praying the grey thing described as a burger will sort out your hangover. It creeps up on you, honest.

Having said that, Atlanta are not your standard third division side. Rather than the two-men-and-a-dog outfit you might expect, their ground, the Estadio Don León Kolbovski, can cram in over 20,000. There was closer to a tenth of that present on Saturday, but no shortage of characters. Including the crazy old guy with the eyes of a husky and the tan of Bruce Forsyth. Mistaking me for a Boca fan (most foreigners are), he started to gloat outrageously about Chacarita's 4-1 win last week. He acted the part of a big Boca cry-baby whilst moaning: "Oh no, Chacarita, Chacarita..." After the performance I explained I didn't swing that way and we were right as rain. We reminisced over the golazo and I left to grapple with the 'burger' he'd just sold me.

There aren't many teams named after an earthquake but that's allegedly how this Villa Crespo side became Atlanta. The founders got together to form the club in 1904, not long after some destructive tectonic activity in Georgia and named the team in solidarity with the US city, or so one story goes. Sadly for the yellow and blue hinchas of Atlanta, their glory days are well behind them. Their only top flight success is the first and last Copa Suecia (Sweden Cup) in 1960, a dog's dinner of a competition. Started in 1958, it took two years to finish. But what matters is Atlanta won it, beating Racing 3-1. Since then they've mostly been in the Primera B Metropolitana (one of the two regionalised third divisions), which is exactly where I found them on Saturday. Mid-table.

Atlanta have plenty of fans and there was a fair amount of singing and the ubiquitous jumping up and down, but something was missing. Away fans. This is no reflection on their opponents, Defensores de Belgrano, but is in fact, the law. Since 2007 there have been no away fans at Primera B matches, which makes for rather a strange atmosphere. Instead of tackling the problems of violence buried deep in the foundations of Argentine football, the AFA simply banned visiting fans from all games, probably cutting a hefty police bill in the process...

That's enough politics for now. The game was a good one, much better than the dross served up by Huracán and Colón at the Tomás Adulfo Ducó the night before. In charge from start to finish, Los Bohemios took the lead after 12 minutes through a header from hard-working, lank-haired forward Carlos Izquierdoz. And 19 minutes later they sowed up the game through Oscar Acuña who galloped down the right, cut inside and let fly with a glorious left-foot shot for the golazo everyone had been waiting for. Not bad for an 18-year-old making his home debut. And that was all she wrote, with Atlanta comfortably repelling the timid advances of their Nuñez neighbours in the second half.

As alluded to, I went to see Huracán again on Friday night, in a game only memorable for the first incident of football violence I've seen in Argentina. I felt like Danny Dyer, watching on as an overweight curly-haired bloke of about 38 was pushed steadily down the stairs and then set upon by about 50 people. It's safe to say they beat the living shit out of him. At one point two policemen entered the fray for appearances sake and presumably to shout things like: "He's not worth it!" or "Fight! Fight! Fight!". After a couple of minutes the mob itself decided enough was enough and one of their number took him by the hair and dragged him out of the ground. Within ten minutes there were two six-year-old kids having a kickabout on the same spot the fat man had been pulverised. This is football in Argentina.

Luckily for fans of Fútbol Para Todos there was more excitement on the pitch elsewhere. Argentinos were delighted to get one over on their tenants, Chacarita, Gimnasia got a rare away win at San Lorenzo (literally 'a difficult place to come to' as the stadium is across the street from a villa). Jade Godoy Cruz beat Velez in fortress Mendoza (they've only dropped four points at home all season), Independiente beat Arsenal 1-0 to continue their march to the clausura title, River lost again and Racing's game at Tucumán was stopped because of a monsoon.

The big result was at the Bombanera though, where the hapless Boca were defeated by the mighty Rosario Central. The two clubs are now level on points, just one place off the bottom. Boca's performance over previous seasons means they're safe from relegation but for Central it was a huge result as they fight to escape the play-off for the third relegation spot. It was also the first game in charge for Leonardo Carol Madelón after Cuffaro Russo got the chop last week. As things stand however, they're still in the mire.

Next week, I'll be in the land of the first World Cup hosts and winners, Uruguay, eating chivitos and maybe watching Liverpool.

Fútbol Para Todos

2010-03-30T00:04:00.010-03:00

Football for everyone, whether they like it or not. That's the motto of fútbol para todos, Argentine TV's football coverage. The national game is rammed down the throats of Argentines week after week. There is no escape. Turn on the TV over the weekend and you're bound to find something torneo-related. Chances are it will be a live match. People who moan about how much football there is on TV in England would hate it over here.

Rubber-faced president Cristina Kirchner (above) owns football on TV. The government bought the coverage before the start of the apertura in August 2009 in an obviously populist move. Sounds inspired, but the fact they paid double (600 million pesos) what a cable company had paid in the past takes the shine off a little. But it's done, football is theirs and by heck they're making the most of it. For the apertura they broadcast every single game. Consecutively. That's two on Friday night and four each on Saturday and Sunday. So football mentalists could sit through 40 hours or so of live coverage per week.

The result is footballitis. After three games on the trot I'm usually begging for mercy, and I'm a big fan of FPT. One issue is that Argentine football is hardly great. Exciting, yes, mainly due to the epically poor level of defending, but the quality is not high. It's not ideal for the game-going fan either. With games back-to-back, kick-offs get delayed as the day progresses. It will be interesting to see the effect it's had on attendances at the end of the season.

One game that could have cured even the worst case of footballitis was Boca's visit to Chacarita. Hot-on-the-heels of a straightforward and uninspiring win over River in Thursday's rearranged superclásico (the only point of interest being the men who tried to get rid of all the ticker tape on the pitch with leaf-blowers and rakes prior to kick-off and failed), it was another clásico for the Xeneizes. Mainly because the two sets of barras hate each other so much, rather than geographical reasons, but still.

Chacarita take their name from a Buenos Aires barrio dominated by a huge and ornate cemetery (left), hence the nickname Los Funebreros (the undertakers). But they haven't played there in 70 years, since moving to San Martin, outside city limits. With their own ground currently being rebuilt they've been playing at Argentinos this year but the Boca game was big enough to get shifted to Huracán's Estadio Tomás Adolfo Ducó. Just to show that they weren't overawed by the grand surroundings, Chaca went out and thumped Boca 4-1.

The result shows what a red herring the superclásico is at the moment. Anyone can beat River at home, it's really no great achievement and no indication of form. Even so, Boca started the game with confidence and took the lead when Matías Giménez finished off a lovely move masterminded by Riquelme. They went in a goal up at half time then fell to pieces as only Boca can. Slack marking just after half-time let Facundo Carra in to poke home the equaliser. Then the real party piece. A masterpiece of incompetence from the Boca defence. Dennis Norden would have chuckled for hours at such a cock-up. A hopeful ball forward reached the edge of the Boca box, Julio Barroso and Boca keeper Javier Garcia converged to deal with the danger. Barroso left it to Garcia, who let it roll through his legs. Diego Morales picked up the pieces but was scythed down before he could shoot into an empty net. Just to round it off, the ref sent off the wrong defender.

Nicolás Ramirez knocked in the resulting penalty at the second attempt and Facundo Parra got his second before the event the game should be remembered for, a peach of a goal from Sebastián Sciorilli (right). Globito means little balloon in castellano. It is also the rather charming way they have of describing a chip. And what a chip it was. Twenty-five yards out, Sciorilli had a little look, shaped for a pile-driver, then arced the ball over the helpless Garcia. A golazo if ever there was one. Sciorilli then got himself sent off, as plucky little Chilean Gary Medel had done for Boca three days earlier having won the superclásico with a goal and a golazo. Watch all the ludicrous events here.

Elsewhere in Fecha 11 action, leaders Independiente were held to a draw by Colón but Jade Godoy Cruz went down 2-1 at Estudiantes meaning they couldn't close the gap. Estudiantes are now just a point behind JGC. The Bichos of Argentinos continued their steady rise up the table to fifth after yet another 1-0 win, this time at River. Lanús won at Tigre and Arsenal beat San Lorenzo.

Tucumán remain rooted to the bottom, losing 1-0 at Vélez, but the big news at the wrong end of the table was a huge win for Racing. Matías Martínez's goal against Newell's takes Racing out of the play-off for the third relegation place. Relegation is worked out using another table, based on averages over the past three seasons. It's complicated and I'll go into it at some point but I'm too lazy to do it at the minute. Still in the play-off places are Gimnasia and poor old Central, both of whom lost. Central at home to Huracán, after not looking like scoring for the entire 90 minutes. Even the effervescent Johnny Gomes was strangely subdued. Things aren't looking good for either side.

You may have noticed by now that I shamefully didn't make it to a game last week and just covered it up by talking about football on TV. Sadly, I had too many bizarre work commitments to get to a match. I'll make amends this week.

Trout to Shout About

2010-03-22T22:52:00.012-03:00

There are many fine ways to waste 150 pesos in Buenos Aires. You can go for a slap-up steak dinner at La Cabrera, take one of the city's many transsexual prostitutes to a telo for an hour-long lesson in modern anatomy, or buy 50 litros of Quilmes and attempt to drink yourself blind before your bladder explodes... The list goes on and on. There's something for everyone, depending on your persuasion. But it's unlikely you'll find anyone who would plump for paying 150 pesos for a touted ticket to the Superclasico. Included in the price is two-and-a-half hours of standing around in the pissing rain before being told it's a fake.

The word for fake in castellano is trucha. It also means trout, which is exactly what we looked like as we trudged home soaked to the skin. In short, we got mugged off. That much is certain. By who, is more difficult to work out. Was it the dodgy tout in the hat and his sidekick (a kid with a scary milky eye and strange scabs all over his legs), or was it the club officials who were so sure the tickets were fake they wouldn't let us run them through the ticket machines or keep them afterwards.

Football tickets in Argentina look a lot like subte or tube tickets, and there is a well-known way to tell if they're fake. You run your nail across the white side of the card and if it leaves a silver mark, it's kosher. Aware of this, the tout showed us his tickets were the marking kind. We tried it ourselves and it worked, there were the silver marks, clear as day. And so we took them, three tickets for 450 pesos. He even put them in a plastic bag, which really was going above and beyond.

After a quick choripan we headed for the ground. We got there about 1.30pm, an hour-and-a-half before the 3pm kick-off time. We were met by a huge queue. And it wasn't moving quickly. Unlike at most games here, there were no checks along the way. Twenty minutes before kick-off we had a reminder that this isn't the safest of fixtures to watch. We had 20 yards of queue between us and the ground when there was a bang like a gun shot. No fireworks this week, just a River hincha throwing a wooden door out of the third tier of the stadium onto the street below. As you do. At the same time his mate kicked furiously at the masonry to try and dislodge a hunk worth throwing down below. Unsurprisingly his Adidas were no match for the concrete of the Bombanera. No one got hit by the door, if they had, it wouldn't have been pretty.

Finally we were at the gate, the final hurdle. We handed over the tickets only to be met with:
"Son truchas."
Fuck. But the scratchy thing works, "Marca, marca!"
"Son truchas."
Ushered out of the line with no other explanation, there was pleading, arguing, disbelief, but none of it helped. We weren't the only ones. Forty or so sodden souls crammed round the edge of the stadium, waiting for a miracle. This is the hunting ground of the secondary tout. Prepared for the weather with his umbrella and pristine white baseball cap, he guaranteed safe passage into the ground for just 200 pesos. Each. No chance.

Sadly a couple of other lads weren't so wise, or thrifty. They forked out the cash and waited. Finally the tout's contact took over at one of the gates. As the police and other officials turned a collective blind eye, in they went. For the most expensive nine minutes of their lives. That's how long it took the referee to realise that Riquelme, Gallardo and co. kicking puddles for 90 minutes wasn't much of a spectacle. Match abandoned.

By this point we'd already sodded off. With taxis few and far between we tried to get on a bus. It stopped for a group of ten people. Within seconds there were about 40 clamouring to get in. The besieged bus driver tried to drive off with people hanging out of the front door as one unsavoury character tried and eventually succeeded in booting in the back doors. Eventually the bus got away, and reasoning it wasn't possible to get any wetter, we walked home. Defeated.

It wasn't a fútbol para todos (FPT) free week for me though. On Friday night I took a trip south to Parque Patricios to see Huracán play host to Chacarita in the wonderfully weird Estadio Tomás Adolfo Ducó. Not only do they have the coolest badge in the Campeonato, El Globo also have one of the best grounds. A 48,000 capacity concrete bowl, what sets the Ducó apart is the bizarre tower that rises from halfway on one side of the stadium (above). It's like a cross between a Nazi monument and a rocket ship, the kind of thing Albert Speer would have designed if he worked for NASA.

Back to the game, despite the fanatical support of their frankly mental away following, the Chacarita forwards missed chance after chance in the first half. And in the second they were made to pay as Huracán put a very entertaining game to bed. A golazzo from Gino Clara and a well-worked counter attack finished off by Paolo Goltz did the damage. That's four defeats on the trot for Chaca. Boss Mauro Navas has already had one more game than coaches in this league usually get. He's on borrowed time.

Poor old Central lost again, away at league-leaders Independiente. But Jade Godoy Cruz just won't let them get away, beating Banfield 2-0 in Mendoza, with the golazzo of the weekend. It was another bad weekend for Racing, beaten 1-0 by Lanús and in very real danger of going down. Argentinos missed the chance to go third by letting in a late equaliser against Tigre at the EDAM, while Estudiantes beat Atlético Tucumán and San Lorenzo were held by Colón. Arsenal got a great win at Gimnasia, and Vélez got a draw in Rosario thanks to the very generous Newell's keeper, Sebastián Peratta, an ex-Vélez player. Scroll down to watch his efforts here.

River and Boca will try again at the bizarre time of 3.45pm on Thursday afternoon, but I won't be there. With my wallet 150 pesos lighter I'll stick to watching it on TV. I just can't get rid of the taste of trout.

Paradise Found: Milton Saves Central

2010-03-16T00:37:00.008-03:00

Football is a game for sentimentalists, just ask Milton Caraglio. The young Rosario Central striker was in tears as he left the field on Sunday. And not in an arty, single tear rolling down his cheek way. The 21-year-old was balling his eyes out, his face buried in his shirt. The reason? His header finally gave Central their first win of the Clausura, at the ninth attempt. And Christ, did they make hard work of it.

In recent weeks the pressure has been rising on Central coach Cuffaro Russo faster than the water level in a particularly tough stage of Rainbow Islands. At 6.45 on Sunday afternoon he was probably thinking about what size of box he'd need to clear his desk. The score was 0-0 with two minutes of normal time to play. Central's opponents, San Lorenzo (managed by the terrifying Diego Simeone), were down to nine men and had been for more than 20 minutes, but still Central couldn't kill them off.

Until Caraglio saved his boss' bacon. Gervasio Nuñez arced a free-kick in from the left and the striker hurled himself at it (and through his marker at the same time). At some point in his lunge the ball struck Caraglio's head, then it hit the crossbar and finally bounced down over the line. The crowd at the Gigante de Arroyito exploded with the relief of a man who's just loosened his belt a notch after an epic asado. Russo was overcome too, and showed his gratitude to Caraglio by taking him off in stoppage time to an emotional standing ovation. "Fortunately we won and the manager stays," Milton blubbed afterwards. For Caraglio personally, it marks another step on the road to recovery from a knee injury that kept him out for almost a year and lost him his place in one of Maradona's all-Argetine-based-players squads.

Special mention must go to San Lorenzo's Jonathan Bottinelli (far left), who chalked up the 11th red card of his career in the game. Eleven! And he's only 25! Just to put into perspective what a remarkable achievement this is, he's just one off Vinnie Jones' haul of 12 and two away from Roy Keane's English football record of 13. With a good decade or so left in the tank I'd put money on Bottinelli passing both, particularly if Argentine referees keep helping the cause. It was never a sending off.

The other big news of the week (well, THE big news of the week for everyone else) was the contrasting fortunes of 'the big two' as we hurtle towards next Sunday's superclasico at the Bombanera. The biggest game in Argentine domestic football this season will see a team in 11th (River) take on a team in 17th (Boca). The two could have been a whole lot closer had River not surprised us all by playing quite well to beat Huracán 2-0 at El Monumental. I watched the events unfold from the dizzying heights of the popular but missed the first goal for foolishly not allowing enough time to be frisked on three occasions within 200 yards on the way in. It was a scrambled own goal so I wasn't that fussed. The second, however, was a bullet of a header from Gustavo Canales, finishing off one of the many fine counter attacks River executed in the second half.

Had I not been too scared to go on my own, I would have ditched River for Boca and watched them sink to new depths, going down 3-0 at Tigre, a town of about 31,000 people. That's half the population of Harlow, although I'd still fancy their chances against Town. To justify my reluctance to go solo, a car carrying Tigre barras was stopped en route to Huracán's ground last weekend and a small arsenal of revolvers was found in the boot. This is sadly such a common event in Argentina that it only made page 23 of Olé.

In other news around the grounds, Argentinos had a missed penalty to thank as they racked up their third 1-0 win on the trot at Racing. Jade Godoy Cruz bounced back from last week's defeat with a home win over Tucumán, but Independiente also won (at Chacarita), so the Avellaneda club stay top. There were also wins for Vélez and Estudiantes. Banfield drew 0-0 for the second week in a row, as their success in the Copa Libertadores starts to take its inevitable toll on their league form. Colón and Gimnasia shared the points in Santa Fe.

No matter that both Los Millonarios and Los Xenizes are having bad seasons, tickets for the superclasico will be as hard to come by as ever. I'm going to take my chances at the ground and see if I can pay over the odds for the privilege of worrying about being robbed for 90 minutes while two distinctly average sides slug it out on the pitch. Like I said, football is a sentimental game.

Fire in the hole!

2010-03-09T22:27:00.017-03:00

I had never seen a flare before. On TV, yeah, of course. I've watched games played in Turkey and other hotbeds of football violence and turn-a-blind-eye policing. You know the drill, there's a sudden flash of light and then smoke starts pouring out of the stands. On Sunday I saw one first hand. From approximately half a metre away. There was no warning, no one shouted, 'fire in the hole' or 'grenade', there was no order to duck and cover. It just went off. And within seconds I was enveloped in thick, acrid, red smoke. As someone who is slightly obsessed with the First World War my immediate thoughts were of chlorine, mustard gas and ineffective protective masks. None of these were present.

Above all else, it was exciting. "Things are happening and I am here!" I thought. "This would never happen in England! What's the harm? Health and safety has not gone mad, in fact it's sensibly decided not to turn up at all, and everything's fine!" Well, not quite. Still grinning like an idiot, I turned to my right after the burning flare had been chucked onto the pitch, to see an angry young father yelling at the flare-holder. "I'm going to fucking kill you, what the hell are you doing?" was about all I could make out. Then he stretched out a leg to boot him several steps down the terraces. But it didn't kick off. The culprit held up an apologetic hand and shuffled away to another part of the stand. Then I saw the aftermath of all the fun. The disgruntled dad's son looked baffled and scared and kept patting his singed hair. Two steps below him a teenager took off his blackened replica shirt and began to scratch the three burns on his back, each about half an inch or so long. As ever, I got away scot free.

The fun and games took place at half time in my second visit to the Estadio Diego Armando Maradona. And it couldn't have been more different to my first trip to the EDAM. Not least because the Bichos actually won, beating Velez Sarsfield 1-0. Velez is in Liniers, a barrio not far south west of Argentinos Juniors' home neighbourhood of La Paternal. That makes this fixture a clasico and there's nothing they like more here than a local derby.

We were stood in the Popular, the manor of the barra bravas (hooligans with mafia tendencies). They're the ones you see jumping up and down on the rails of the terracing while holding onto the huge flags that run from the back of the stand down to the pitch. Against Jade Godoy Cruz they weren't up for it, they gave it a go but their heart just wasn't in it. But as soon as El Fortin (the Fort, Velez' nickname) rolled into town they pulled out all the stops.

With the barras coordinating events it was a bit like being at a kid's birthday party. At the start we were given party bags to blow up and wave around as the teams ran out. Then at half-time they threw out the till-rolls which cause the big white papery mess you see on TV at South American games. Needless to say they also provide the flares and lead the singing. Which is more tuneful here but no less obscene.

On the pitch, Velez didn't look like the same team who came back from 3-1 down to draw 4-4 with Boca just days earlier. Up front they were totally bereft of ideas, despite the fact their Uruguayan striker, Santiago Silva, is one of the league's top-scorers. On Sunday he did a very good Jermain-Defoe-on-a-bad-day impression, getting caught offside time and again. After a solid first half performance the Bichos upped the tempo in the second and the inevitable goal came five minutes from the end. The hapless Marco Torsiglieri turned the ball into his own net after fine work from substitute Gustavo Oberman on the left. The win puts Argentinos ninth with a game in hand over all but one of the teams above them.

Elsewhere, the bubble burst for JGC, losing 2-1 at Newell's. Arsenal (not that one, but it's hard to like a team with that name) won at home for the first time this season, thrashing Colón 3-0. Atlético Tucuman held Banfield to a goal-less draw, Tigre beat Huracán and Boca and River both lost. Again. Sadly Rosario Central and the mercurial talent of Jonny Gómez (left) are still without a win after a draw in La Plata. The little fella certainly had an eventful game. From the high of a tricky run past three Gimnasia defenders to the low of a horrendous dive on the edge of the box for which he somehow escaped a booking, he was always involved. On the off-chance Ariel Cuffaro-Russo, Central's under fire manager is reading this, he really needs to change things around. Central are one of the few sides in the league who don't play with a number 10. That influential position just behind the front two would be perfect for JG. As it is his talents are wasted on the right and with their star striker and captain, Lucho Figeroa, limping off injured, things are not looking good for Los Canallas...

That's all for now, with a bit of luck I'll be on the Paraná Delta delta this weekend as Tigre welcome the shambles that is Boca. With Los Xeneizes sitting 17th with only one win to their name it may be the last game in charge for coach Abel Alves.

As ever, go here to watch todos los goles.

Palermo Hollywood

2010-03-05T16:23:00.014-03:00

When I arrived in Argentina I knew Martin 'El Loco' Palermo for one thing and one thing only, missing three penalties in the same game. It's fitting therefore that on Tuesday night, with the title of Boca's joint-greatest goalscorer of all time just one strike from his grasp, he missed another one. But anyone who can miss two penalties in the same game and step up to take the third is nothing if not thick-skinned, so big Martin lumbered on as only he can and minutes later sealed his place in Boca history.

The goal summed up what he is all about. A square ball from the left found him in acres of space, just ten yards from goal. A touch as heavy as a pre-diet Andy Fordham and two defenders and the keeper were on him. But with a waft of his tree trunk of a left leg the ball was in. Goal number 218 in the blue and gold of Boca Juniors. Sadly for El Loco it didn't come at the Bombanera, but down the road at the Estadio José Amalfitani, home of Velez Sarsfield. Not that he'll mind too much, in fact there's a nice symmetry about it as he broke the 200 mark against the same club last season, with one of the greatest headers of all time.

The fact Palermo never made it in Europe is the main reason he's reached the milestone. He did give it a go on the other side of the Atlantic. Sadly, his spell in Spain was memorable only for the time he stood on a wall to celebrate a goal for Villareal. It collapsed, breaking his left leg in the process. And so he came back, like they all do. He is worshipped at the Bombanera, but with Boca in a transitional phase (also known as chaos), there's no guarantee his contract will be renewed at the end of the season. Even so El Diego is yet to rule out the big lad from the Argentine World Cup squad.

Palermo's goal was a Boca equalizer, making the score 1-1 in the most eventful game of fecha 7. Boca scored two more, including a golazzo from Nicolás Gaitán, before deciding to implode. They gifted a lifeline to Velez with a laughably easy second goal and by the time they woke up they were 4-3 down. Thankfully for La Doce, the plucky little Chilean Gary Medel, one of Boca's most likable players, forced home a late equalizer. Here are all the goals complete with the obligatory mental commentary.

The other story of the round was the continuing and surprising rise of Jade Godoy Cruz. They followed up their near-perfect smash and grab job at Argentinos last weekend with a home win over Lanús on Wednesday night to put them top of the table. The Mendozans are enjoying only the third year of top flight football in their history and their current haul of 15 points from seven games is as many as they racked up in the whole of last season's Apertura.

Key to their recent success has been Colombian playmaker Jairo Castillo. Argentine sports daily, Olé, called their victory over Lanús "a black night". The lights didn't go out at the stadium. No one was killed. They just wanted to highlight the influence of Castillo, a black man. In Argentina they have a different attitude to race. Calling someone negro is not an insult. It's the same as calling someone gordo (fatty), just a playful statement of fact. Anyone with even slightly dark skin will be known as 'el negro'. Every group of friends has a negro, just like they have a gordo and a rubio (blondie - covering any hair colour lighter than black). Social commentary over. Castillo, a journeyman in his second spell with JGC, scored the first with a lovely header and set up the other in a 2-1 win.

In other news, the Argentine national team, La Selección, beat Germany 1-0 in Munich on Wednesday. Their victory was greeted with the usual understatement. "A world shock in Munich," screamed Olé, who praised a strong defensive performance from the Argies. Hmm, a strong defensive performance against one of the slowest attacks I have ever seen. Podolski and Klose laboured up front like two old cart horses ready to be put out to pasture. Walter Samuel, finally brought in from the cold by Maradona, barely had to break a sweat. In contrast, at the other end, Argentina looked sprightly and dangerous. With Messi heavily marked, Benfica's Ángel Di María revelled in the excess space and linked up well with Madrid's Gonzalo Higuaín, who is being billed as a cross between Crespo and Batigol. I'm not sure about that, but 'Pipita' certainly took his goal well.

Bizarrely, it was left to Maradona to speak some sense after the game: "We are not the champions of the world but we have told the world that we're in the fight," said the cigar-toting sort-of manager. So maybe Argentina do have a chance in South Africa after all, or maybe I've just lived here too long...

If I survive the Gualeguaychu carnival, I'll be going back to the Diego Armando Maradona stadium on Sunday for the visit of Velez...

Sons of Bichos

2010-03-02T23:47:00.014-03:00

The Estadio Diego Armando Maradona (EDAM) seems as good a place as any to start a blog about Argentine football. No one else has stamped their grubby paws on the national sport quite like Diego. His journey from genius, to cheating genius, to dope fiend, to dreadful national coach, began at Argentinos Juniors. And they won't let you forget it. Not only is the stadium named after him but his family own the only executive box. Fans still wear shirts with the little fella's name on the back and a leaflet promoting the club's new museum has three pictures on it, two of them are of Maradona.

Sadly for the Bichos Colarados (red bugs) of Argentinos, Diego was unavailable for selection when they took on the might of Mendoza's finest, (Jade) Godoy Cruz on Sunday evening. Worse still, the current occupant of the famous 'number ten' shirt, is unfit to lace the great man's boots. Not only that, he shouldn't be allowed to look at them, not even through a tinted window. Facundo Coria, the man in question, played like a drain.

At times a drain might have been more useful as he gave the ball away time and again and ruined the intricate moves started by fans' favourite Néstor Ortigoza. Big Néstor is a unit (see right). He trundles around the middle of the park like a tonka truck, but with a deceptively light touch. He can ping balls 50 yards across the pitch, barely lifting his foot or breaking his stride, such as it is. The Paraguayan started the game well, combining with Juan Mercier and Federico Domínguez in the Argentinos midfield for some lovely spells of tippy-tappy football around the box.

While the Bichos were trying to fashion the greatest goal of all time, Godoy Cruz went up the other end and showed them how it's done. Twice. It turns out that Cesar Carranza and Federico Higuaín (above) are not only Argentina's premier Right Said Fred lookalikes, they're also pretty handy on the pitch. Throughout the game they made the most of terrible Argentinos defending, which was kamikaze at best. The Bichos nicked a goal back from a corner before half time and it looked like they'd make a game of it in the second half. But JGC tightened up in the middle of the park and held on comfortably for a deserved away win. Their 200-or-so hinchas (hardcore fans) went home delighted, despite the fact their ten-hour bus from Mendoza was delayed and they missed their side's two well-taken goals.

This was one of the final fixtures in round 6 of the Clausura (the second of Argentina's two seasons per year, when I understand the system better I'll go into it in its big sweaty entirety). Elsewhere, Boca, who are rubbish, almost scraped a home win against the second best team in the world, Estudiantes. But those pesky lads from La Plata hit back with a late equaliser. River, who are even worse, had their own late equaliser to thank for a point at La Plata's second team, Gimnasia. Apertura (first season) champions Banfield went down 2-1 at Newell's Old Boys and the other Rosarino side, Central (who I have a bit of a soft spot for) earned a creditable 1-1 draw at high-flying Colón, the only downside being my favourite player, Jonathan Gomez, received his marching orders. To see all the goals go here, select Clausura 2010 and fecha 6, then whatever team you fancy.

As I write this, round 7 is already well under way as the tidal wave of mediocrity that is Argentine football just keeps on coming. In this World Cup year they're cramming fixtures in like nobody's business. I wasn't planning to but I may try and squeeze another blog out of this midweek round as there have been a couple of interesting results already. The Argies face Germany tomorrow in a friendly but the bum rush of fútbol para todos can't be stopped, so there are also four league games...