Argentina have scraped through to the World cup finals in South Africa next year, a late winner from Mario Bolatti gave the Argies a crucial 1-0 victory at Uruguay to finish fourth in the South American table and clinch an automatic qualifying spot.
A lot of British fans were hoping that Argentina would not qualify so that the competition would not be as great and England’s chance’s would improve, I don’t feel like that, the World cup is the greatest sporting spectacle in the world and teams like Argentina missing out devalue it.
I also happen to believe that Maradona will come good, his critics and he has many of them do not feel he is up to it, but for all his failings he has qualified, it cant be easy managing a national squad it’s not like day to day management where you get to spend all your time with your players, at best at international level you may get the players together for a fortnight in one go if your lucky, but more often than not it’s just for a few days.
As a player Diego Maradona had no equal, for me he stands head and shoulders above any other footballer past or present, though there are current pretenders to his crown like Lionel Messi and Kaka even they fall a long way short of the great man, anyone who has followed Maradona’s career and saw him at the 1986 World cup will agree with my sentiments. That year Maradona was so awesome that he won it on his own.
No pundits give Maradona and Argentina a chance for the World cup next year, I am going to go against popular opinion and say that I think Maradona has one more performance up his sleeve and think that the 10/1 on offer for them to lift the trophy is good value. Certainly better value than the measly 7/1 offered about England’s chances.
Great footballer and greater interviewee:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/oct/15/diego-maradona-argentina-world-cup
I was fortunate enough to be around during the peak of Maradona, and have always been puzzled as to why Pele is rated above him. In his prime he was the greatest footballer by a very wide margin, and no-one has come even close to matching his skills.
ReplyDeleteI wish him luck - it would be a shame to see his image tarnished during his managerial years, so I'd like to see Argentina progress - and like you I may have a flutter on them winning the cup.
We all remember his 'hand of god' goal, and judge him by that - but people often forget that his second goal in the same game was probably the greatest individual goal of all time.
Maradona used 70 different players during qualification for the World Cup so probably doesn't know what his best team is. If he gets it right though 10-1 looks a pretty good bet to me.
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