From contenders to no-hopers

Carlo Garganese

We have seen it so many times in the past where great players don’t make great coaches, and it now seems to have happened again with the greatest player of them all – Diego Maradona.
With the players he has at his disposal, Argentina should already be qualified for South Africa. Yet with just three games of their Conmebol group to go – two of them difficult trips to Paraguay and Uruguay – and only two points separating the fourth-placed Albicelestes from Colombia and Ecuador in fifth and sixth, there is the very real possibility of missing out on their first World Cup for 40 years. There is no doubt that the main reason why Argentina find themselves in such a predicament is due to Maradona. Football is sometimes over-complicated. If you pick the best players at your disposal, providing there is balance, you are likely to have a far greater chance of success than if you choose lesser players. This has been proven by Maradona, whose squad selection has been absolutely bizarre at times. The coach has an unhealthy obsession with local players, almost as if he is on some quest to prove that South American football can still stand up against the poachers of Europe. Ten on Diego’s roster for the Brazil clash were from the Argentine League, including 35-year-old Martin Palermo, who has not played internationally for 10 years, and 36-year-old defender Rolando Schiavi earning his maiden call-up. It is no secret that Argentina are weak in defence, yet Maradona overlooked his only top-class centre-back in Inter’s Walter Samuel, offering a baptism of fire for debutant Sebastian Dominguez of Velez Sarsfield. Meanwhile, despite such an embarrassment of riches in midfield, he started with the 34-year-old Juan Sebastian Veron – whom regardless of his fine domestic form with Estudiantes has been playing out of Europe now for three years – and Jesus Datolo, who admittedly was one of Argentina’s best players and scored a wonder goal, but has been nothing more than average for Napoli since joining them in January of this year. There are so many complaints that can be thrown at Maradona’s door. Why is the calamitous Gabriel Heinze still playing? Why was Carlos Tevez preferred in attack when his start to the season has been so inferior to the red-hot Diego Milito? Why is Lazio's Mauro Zarate still being snubbed when he is such a phenomenon? And what about Argentina’s formation? Why is Maradona employing an England-style 4-4-2, especially in a game against a Dunga-led Brazil who are renowned for loading the midfield and hitting on the counter-attack through the rigid gaps? Argentina should be playing a 4-2-3-1 – with this formation they would have every country in the world quaking in their boots. Javier Mascherano and (the currently injured) Esteban Cambiasso holding in midfield, Diego Milito as the lone marksman, and any three from Lionel Messi, Ezequiel Lavezzi, Sergio Aguero, Zarate, Tevez, Gonzalo Higuain, Lucho Gonzalez, and Maxi Rodriguez in the attacking midfield trident. With Inter stars Samuel and Javier Zanetti patrolling the defence, Argentina have a team capable of blitzing the World Cup. By using the 4-4-2, the Albicelestes waste all their strengths that are located in midfield and attack and expose all their weaknesses in defence. Another example is captain Mascherano. Maradona once said that his Argentina team is “Mascherano and 10 others”, yet the Liverpool man has largely struggled and he was torn apart by Kaká. This is the same Mascherano who marked the Brazilian so expertly during the 2007 Champions League Final. The reason why the former West Ham man is labouring comes down to formation. He is not suited to the 4-4-2 (even West Ham's Hayden Mullins was preferred to him in this system!). To play centre midfield at the highest level in a 4-4-2 you need to be an all-action runner who can combine attacking, defending and physical play. Mascherano is a reader of the game, a man-marker, and needs to sit deeper or play in a more compact midfield. All romantics of the game want Maradona to do well, but should he have another negative result against Paraguay on Wednesday, then the Argentine FA will have a big decision to make on whether they should replace him as coach before the final two decisive October qualifiers versus Peru and Uruguay.

Carlo Garganese