Reuters Soccer Blog

Mascherano is captain, but Messi must play the Maradona role

When Carlos Bilardo began his job as Argentina coach in January 1983, the first thing he did was to visit Maradona in Spain where he was playing for Barcelona.

Bilardo told Maradona he wanted him as Argentina’s captain, that he was the only player sure of his place and that he would build a team around him to win the World Cup.

Maradona, who had had an unhappy first World Cup in Spain six months earlier, reacted by promising himself nothing would stand in their way.

“The first thing I resolved in that moment was to create something, a conscience: to play for the national team had to be the most important thing in the world,” he said many years later in his autobiography.

“If we had to travel thousands and thousands of kilometres, do it; if we had four matches in a week, play them; if we had to stay in little hotels that were falling apart, accept it…Everything, everything for the national team, for the blue and white.

Argentina ‘in the hands of God’

“We’re in the hands of God,” some Argentine newspapers said after Diego Maradona was appointed coach of Argentina, a move that has just been confirmed.

Much has been made of Maradona’s lack of experience as a coach but, as former Napoli president Corrado Ferlaino pointed out last week, Maradona was a coach on the pitch during the Italian club’s glory years.

His ability to direct Argentina’s campaign to reach and then win the 2010 World Cup is not the real worry at the start of this new phase in the idol’s life.

Rather, it is his volatile temperament that will be of concern, although there is the hope that he is calmer now that he appears to have come out of the tunnel of excess.

This is a comeback with a difference, because Maradona will have to rely on other players, rather than himself, to produce the magic while he sits on the bench.

Forget Maradona, the real surprise is seeing Bilardo back

Amid all the furore over Diego Maradona’s imminent appointment as Argentina coach, an equally surprising and significant development has been all but overlooked: the return of Carlos Bilardo to the national team set-up at the age of 69, and after an 18-year absence.

Affectionately known as Narigon (Big Nose), Bilardo is one of the most controversial figures in Argentine soccer.

In 1986, he coached them to their second and last World Cup victory with a side built around Maradona, who was at his peak at the time. Four years later, he led them to the runners-up spot in Italy.

The latter, however, was generally regarded as a shabby campaign, which included two penalty shootout wins, a lot of negative negative football, and ended with two sendings-off in the final against Germany, a match in which Argentina already had five players suspended.

Bilardo is often regarded as personifying the ugly side of Argentine football.

He played in the notorious Estudiantes side of the late 1960s, when he would famously take a needle on to the pitch, poking it into his opponents at inconvenient moments.

He once seemed to imply that he had offered Brazil contaminated water in a World Cup match — he later said it was all a misunderstanding — and there was a story about him giving players heat rub to smother into the eyes of their opponents.

Argentina’s romantic commitment facing a test

Take a look at the standings in the South American World Cup qualifying group and it seems that Argentina are making steady progress towards South Africa. After seven of the 18 games, Alfio Basile’s team are third with 12 points, two points behind the leaders, and only four goals conceded.

On paper, Argentina and their elegant playmaker Juan Roman Riquelme are a purist’s dream, weaving neat patterns around the field with their passing and refusing to resort to the long ball or the physical approach.

Basile himself, who with his slicked-back hair and gravel voice appears to have shot straight out of a classic tango film, is an old romantic, who believes that winning must be achieved with style. Their forwards Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez and Sergio Aguero need little introduction.

When it all goes right, Argentina can be breathtaking to watch — the 26-pass goal they scored against Serbia at the last World Cup and the three goals in 20 minutes they fired past Mexico in a friendly in June give a good idea of the heights they can reach.

Yet, something is not quite right. Nine of Argentina’s points in the qualifiers came from the first three games. Since then, they have chalked up three draws — including Saturday’s 1-1 stalemate at home to Paraguay – and one defeat. For some reason, the team will not quite click.

Are they too lightweight? Is it all down to the mischannelled aggression of Tevez who on Saturday was sent off in the first half for the second time in three international appearances? Is it overdependence on the notoriously moody Riquelme? Or should they, dare we say it, contemplate returning to the less attractive tactics of the past employed under the likes of Carlos Bilardo.

Hopefully, they can sort themselves out without going down that road. It would be a huge shame if Argentina were to alter style, which is a refreshing contrast to the physical, counter-attack game adopted by their arch-rivals Brazil.