Argentine journalists were startled to learn that their team would be playing a match against Siberia at the Olympic football tournament. At least, that is what the official translation said.

Coach Sergio Batista, speaking ahead of a game against Serbia, looked on it utter bewilderment as one interpreter attempted to translate his answers from Spanish into Chinese and another then tried to translate the Chinese version of his answer into English.

Unsurprisingly, the final version invariably bore no relation whatsoever to the original, rending the whole exercise a waste of time.

The procedure went like this:

Argentine journalist asks question. Batista answers. The first interpreter translates the question from Spanish into Chinese. The second translates  from Chinese into English. Then the first interpreter translates the answer from Spanish to Chinese. Then the second translates from Chinese into English.

At one stage, the first translator had to ask Batista to explain his answer. Batista, his mind obviously elsewhere, forgot what he had said and had to ask the reporter to repeat the question.

It took more than 30 hair-pulling, excruciating minutes to extract no more than six answers from Batista.

And, like most coaches, he didn’t say anything interesting in any case.

Ronaldinho’s two-goal performance against New Zealand in Sunday’s Olympic Games has already been hailed as some sort of revival after his miserable last season with Barcelona.

The former World Player of the Year showed flashes of his best form in the 5-0 win with plenty of cheeky flicks, shimmies and stepovers. And, of course, he grinned.

“This was a reward for everything which I have done and for all the people who believed in me and helped me to start playing again,” he told Brazilian media.

But the performance needs to be put into context.

The Olympic soccer tournament is an under-23 competition and Ronaldinho is competing as one of the three permitted overage players per team.

Brazil’s opponents qualified from a group in which Fiji were their strongest opponents. They have only three professionals in their 18-man squad. Most of the other players are university students who play football for fun.

Ronaldinho has just signed for AC Milan. He will play in arguably the world’s most unforgiving league and is going to have to fight hard just to get into the team every week.

There are some much tougher battles ahead and it remains to be seen whether he has the motivation to return to his best.

Any talk of a Ronaldinho revival is way too premature, isn’t it?

Argentina could yet pay a heavy price for the deal which has allowed Lionel Messi to play at the Olympic Games.

A lengthy tug-of-war with Barcelona for Messi’s services ended with the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling that Barcelona were not obliged to release him for the Olympics.

However, with Messi already in China and having made it clear his heart was in the Olympics, Barcelona relented and said he could play — provided certain conditions were met.

One was that the Argentina Football Association (AFA) would effectively pay Messi’s wages while he is in China — costly but not unaffordable.

Another was that Argentina would not pick Messi for any friendly internationals in the next year, and that is where the AFA’s coffers could be hit hard.

The arrangement of friendly matches is one of the sport’s most lucrative growth industries.

The likes of Brazil and Argentina are paid handsomely for taking their national teams overseas but the entrepreneurs who arrange the games usually demand the presence of all the top players before they cough up.

Argentina may have plenty of other exciting players such as Carlos Tevez, Juan Roman Riquelme, Sergio Aguero and Fernando Gago, but Messi is the one the fans really want to see.

Without him, Argentina’s appearance fee will likely suffer a considerable knockdown.

Still, at least his presence is working for the team on the pitch. He was the driving force again on Sunday as Argentina beat Australia 1-0 to seal their place in the quarter-finals.

PHOTO: Messi pictured during Argentina’s Group A match against Australia at the Olympic Games in Shanghai, August 10, 2008. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci

If there was an Olympic gold medal for whingeing then Dunga, coach of the Brazilian soccer team, would be among the early contenders.

The 1994 World Cup winning captain, who as a player was an example of resilience and dedication to the cause, is not a happy camper.

First, he was complaining about the food — “When you try to talk to the chef to change the menu, he has to talk to his boss, who has to talk to his boss, who has to talk to his boss and by that time the Olympics are over” — and lack of training time in Shenyang, where Brazil have started their campaign to win a first gold in Olympic soccer.

After his team struggled to beat nine-man Belgium in their opening match on Thursday, he blamed  the pitch and his opponents for making life difficult (isn’t that what they’re supposed to do?).

“The ball bounces around all over the place and you need two or three touches to bring it under control,” he snarled. “The opposition just kept putting all their players behind the ball and used the high ball into the area. They’ve been together for four months and we got together 15 days ago.”

But the unhappy truth is that Brazil should have swept their opponent aside and might have done so if Dunga had been just a little more adventurous. A team boasting players such as Werder Bremen midfielder Diego, Premier League players Lucas and Anderson in midfield, AC Milan prodigy Alexandre Pato in attack, plus Ronaldinho, should not play in fits and starts as Brazil did on Thursday.

Unfortunately, Dunga did what he has done in recent matches with the senior side, which he also coaches, and went for the cautious approach.

He stuck three midfielders in front of his defence and left Pato to fight two or three Belgian defenders on his own. Ronaldinho was stuck out on the left flank with nobody to exchange passes with except left back Marcelo on his occasional forays upfield.

Despite winning the Copa America in his two years at the helm, Dunga does not look comfortable as Brazil’s national team coach. Will he still be around for the 2010 World Cup?

PHOTO: Ronaldinho takes a free kick during Brazil’s Group C soccer match against Belgium at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in Shenyang August 7, 2008. REUTERS/Alvin Chan

Spanish clubs are often cast as villains in South America. One minute they are refusing to release players to play for their respective national teams, the next they are accused of exploiting loopholes in transfer regulations to poach young talent without paying a penny.

Earlier this year, Vasco da Gama angrily accused Real Madrid of trying to make an offer to 15-year-old Philippe Coutinho behind their back. The club said that Real had offered a job to the player’s father and the chance to live abroad.

“They try to get around the law by taking those responsible for the player to live and work abroad,” said Eurico Miranda, club president at the time. “They offer a job to the father and take the player. But they’re not doing that here at Vasco.”

Last year, River Plate president Jose Maria Aguilar said FIFA’s rule that players could not be transferred internationally until they reached the age of 18 was routinely being broken.

“The way it happens is a club from a Spanish city contracts a woman to cook and by coincidence she has a 14-year-old football genius son,” he told Reuters in an interview. “They are stealing our players.”

Real Madrid also upset the Brazilian national team by refusing to release Robinho for Brazil’s pre-Copa America training camp last year even though FIFA’s international calendar was on the side of the South Americans.

The latest rift has involved Barcelona and Argentina striker Lionel Messi. Argentina picked Messi for their Olympic team, believing they were supported by FIFA’s rule obliging clubs to release under-23 players for the tournament.

Barcelona initially refused and took him off to a pre-season training camp in Scotland. Eventually, they allowed him to join Argentina in China, but appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the FIFA ruling. CAS has now ruled in Barcelona’s favour.

Winning an Olympic gold is almost as prestigious as the World Cup for South American footballers. Messi has made it clear that he wants to play for his country and it certainly seems more appealing than facing Wisla Krakow in a Champions League preliminary round, which Barcelona should be able to stroll through in any case.

Barcelona have made their point and won their case. If they drag Messi all the way back to Europe, he is hardly likely to be in the best of motivation or physical shape and they are guaranteed to win themselves a reputation for being spoilsports.

Letting him stay in China would be a much-needed public relations coup for them and Spanish clubs in general.

PHOTO: Messi in training at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Shanghai, August 6, 2008. REUTERS/Aly Song

News just out that the Court of Arbitration for Sport has ruled in favour of Barcelona and decided they will not have to release Argentine forward Lionel Messi for the Olympics.

Assuming Barcelona do not have a change of heart, it means one of the biggest-name athletes at the Games will not be taking part. Brazilians Diego and Rafinha, of Werder Bremen and Schalke 04, will now also presumably be going home.

As Brian Homewood writes, the presence of Messi has helped raise the profile of soccer at the Olympics enormously. His departure will be a big blow to Argentina, and to all those hoping hoping to catch a glimpse of the man.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter said recently that Barcelona and other clubs should let their players stay and compete in the Games even if CAS were to rule in their favour. Let’s see what Barcelona say. 

We’ll have more on this later.