Reuters Soccer Blog

Real Madrid great Di Stefano turns 85

Looking back 60 years at grainy footage of his playing days, it is hard for us to get a clear sense of how good a player Alfredo Di Stefano, who turned 85 on Monday, really was.

Those who were privileged to see the Real Madrid great performing in the flesh say he was one of the most complete footballers to have graced the game.

An accomplished defender, a midfield workhorse, a playmaker and a prolific striker rolled into one, he could be seen covering back in defence, charging forward through midfield, laying on goals for the forwards and smashing shots into the net all in the same game.

Known as “La Saeta Rubia” (the blond arrow), Buenos Aires-born Di Stefano remains in robust health, regularly appears at club events in his capacity as honorary president and has a lively newspaper column in Marca sports daily.

His achievements as a player helped turn Real, whom he joined in 1953, into one of the world’s leading sides, transforming them from insignificant underachievers into the kings of the continent when he guided them to five successive European Cups between 1956 and 1960, scoring in each of the finals.

He is frequently bracketed with Pele, Diego Maradona and Johan Cruyff among the greatest exponents of the game.

“People argue between Pele or Maradona,” Pele was quoted as saying on a visit to Madrid in late 2009. “For me, Di Stefano is the best. He was much more complete.”

The unbearable lightness of being – or how a thin piece of synthetic cloth can become a lead weight

By Rex Gowar in Buenos Aires

Argentines often talk about how heavy a particular football shirt can be, River Plate’s, Boca Juniors’ or Argentina’s.

“La camiseta pesa” (the vest weighs (a lot).

This is what is happening to the players of River Plate, one of Argentina’s “Big Two”, who could be relegated for the first time this month.

The responsibility of being in charge of a squad that could go down to the Nacional B division is affecting coach JJ Lopez, who was a part of a great River team of the 1970s and early 1980s.

River were playing badly at home to Colon last Sunday so Lopez decided to bring off two midfielders and sent on two central strikers to add to the one he already had in the team.

It made matters worse because there was a gaping hole in midfield. River fell behind and only managed to equalise because they played “a los ponchazos”, like Indians waving their ponchos in air and charging forward without any organisation.

Grondona faces trouble at home

By Rex Gowar River Plate’s dire relegation situation is the principal talk of Argentina’s TV soccer chat shows, a bigger story than the crisis at FIFA where Julio Grondona, in power since 1979 and fending off corruption allegations, said he will seek yet another term in office as president of the Argentine FA.

River president Daniel Passarella – who like Michel Platini has occupied most of the top positions in the game: club skipper, national captain lifting a major trophy, national coach – attacked Grondona after his team’s defeat by Boca Juniors in the “superclasico” over his appointments of match officials. Passarella said it was a disgrace the number of penalties the referee, who was not suspended, had missed in the Boca box.

“You must go,” an angry Passarella said in a rare appearance at the weekly meeting of the AFA board where most of the directors are Grondona lackeys mindful of the AFA’s financial support for the clubs in an impoverished league with the government holding the TV coverage rights.

Grondona, who hit the headlines in England this week after attacking the F.A at congress, created the three-season points averages to determine relegation – a device to save Argentina’s traditional big clubs like River from the drop at the end of a bad season.

Now River, having taken only two points out of the last 12 in a relatively decent season but paying for poor results in the previous two, are in the bottom four of the relegation standings with three matches to go and facing a survival playoff against a Nacional B division side.

Noisy chat show discussions centre on the team choices of coach JJ Lopez and the fear that is gripping the River players and affecting their performances, while in Buenos Aires cafes and offices and on street corners fans wonder whether Grondona will intervene to prevent the club with most league titles from being relegated.

Former Fulham striker Facundo Sava, who has a university degree in psychology, wrote a sports newspaper column advising the players to discuss their fears openly as a way of reducing tension on the pitch having experienced a promotion playoff as captain of Racing Club in 2008.

A not so happy birthday for Maradona

Diego Maradona is spending his 50th birthday on Saturday far from the two things that have dominated his life — soccer and being constantly in the public eye.

That leaves Argentina’s greatest player at a crossroads a few short months after a humiliating 4-0 defeat by Germany in the World Cup quarter-finals cost him the job as coach of his beloved Argentina.

Having cheated death more than once and defied doubters to get the job in November 2008, it would be unwise to write off his chances of returning to it one day.

Indeed, former Boca Juniors and Argentina team mate and friend Claudio Caniggia saw him recently and confirmed Maradona was still interested.

“He looked well,” Caniggia said in an interview with the sports daily Ole published on Thursday.

“Obviously, there’s pain. He still hopes for a chance, but he’s well,” said Caniggia, who pointed out that far more experienced coaches have been unable to steer Argentina beyond the last eight since 1990. “Although he doesn’t say so to me, I’m sure inside himself he thinks he deserves to carry on. I think he deserved to.”

The job is, in fact, still open with Maradona’s 1986 World Cup-winning team mate Sergio Batista enjoying a head start as the interim coach and the backing of Argentine Football Association president Julio Grondona.

from Left field:

Messi, Maradona and Batista

With Sergio Batista at the Argentina helm, Lionel Messi has the chance to develop into the truly great footballer his talent has promised since last year’s exploits with Barcelona.

It could be that when the Argentine Football Association make their choice of coach for the 2014 Brazil World Cup cycle, they opt for a different candidate from Batista – Alex Sabella of Estudiantes for instance.

But what matters for Messi is that with Batista he really feels he is playing as well as he does with Barcelona – a bone of contention among Argentines throughout last year’s World Cup qualifiers and into the finals in South Africa where with each passing match the tactics of Diego Maradona isolated him more and more.

By the time Argentina crumbled against Germany in their quarter-final, Messi was back in his team’s own half looking for the ball, Javier Mascherano was floundering on his own in a midfield packed with Germans and Juan Sebastian Veron was wasted warming the bench.

Batista has only presided over two friendlies, with a third in Japan coming up on Friday, but he has fielded a midfield that protects and also feeds Messi for the brilliant kind of opening goal in the 4-1 win over Spain in Buenos Aires last month.

Messi has regularly said he feels comfortable with Batista, a combination that helped Argentina win the Olympic gold medal in 2008. He has not criticised Maradona, he even went as far as to say a few days ago he would be happy with either coach.

Batista, though, seeks and gives Argentina a balance lacking under Maradona, who in the eye of many Argentines is now seen as a destabilising influence on the team.

Spain suffer Argentine embarrassment but write them off at your peril

Trying to read anything into Spain’s 4-1 defeat in Argentina is tough considering it was a friendly. Did the world champions take it too lightly? Was Del Bosque right to field Pepe Reina in goal with fringe players Nacho Monreal, Alvaro Arbeloa and Carlos Marchena in the back four for a match that was never going to be that ‘friendly’?

Or was it that Argentina really got it together under new coach Sergio Batista?

Spain started poorly conceding two goals in the first 13 minutes and the third came after an embarrassing slip from Reina in the 34th, but they responded well in the second half and hit the woodwork three times overall.

Surely the only conclusions that can be drawn will be after the next couple of matches for both sides.

If Spain stumble at home to Lithuania or away to Scotland in their next Euro 2012 qualifiers it could be argued the defeat had dented their aura of invincibility or that their confidence had been knocked.

Spain’s style of football, similar to that of Barcelona’s, is high-risk if you do not display the mental and physical sharpness required to maintain possession in the face of a harrying, motivated opponent, who has the ability to break quickly.

Let’s face it, this game meant much more to Argentina. After their disappointing showing at the World Cup finals in South Africa they were seeking redemption in front of their own fans.

Maradona made mistakes but remains fans’ favourite

It is 20 years since their last semi-final, 24 since their second and last title and three successive World Cups in which Argentina have been hailed as playing the best football with some of the planet’s most talented players yet fallen short.

Post-mortems abound in the Argentine media and in coffee bar discussions throughout Buenos Aires about the reasons for continued failure.

Diego Maradona and his beaten team were given a rapturous welcome back to Buenos Aires by as crowd of about 20,000 the day after their quarter-final pasting by Germany.

Fans, who liked the team’s style, are largely behind Maradona and his players despite serious errors in their most decisive game at the South Africa finals. They want him to stay on.

The wait is likely to be long for Maradona to make a decision. The Argentine Football Association (AFA) is unlikely to decide for him. No one, least of all AFA president Julio Grondona who appointed him in 2008, wants to go down as the man who sacked Maradona, the country’s greatest footballing icon.

The 2010 finals were seen as Argentina’s chance at last to lift a third title given the harmony in the Maradona camp and an attack that was the envy of the world.

But the frailties of the qualifiers had not been overcome after all, merely disguised. When it came to the crunch Maradona, who appeared to be making a good job of learning his trade as coach as he went along, did not make the right choices.

Should Maradona continue after heavyweight blow?

A devastated Diego Maradona left his future open after Argentina’s painful 4-0 defeat by Germany in the World Cup quarter-finals on Friday.

Maradona said defeat was like receiving a punch from Muhammad Ali and there will be many who will criticise the coach for his squad picks, team selection and tactics after the country’s heaviest World Cup loss since 1958.

It was indeed a real buffeting and I’m sure anti-Maradonistas will find plenty of arguments to back up calls for his departure but I suspect many neutrals at this World Cup will feel his boundless energy and the clear bond he had with his players offered a persuasive argument for him to continue in charge.

“I’m so proud of my players and I would like to thank them,” he said in an address that at times sounded valedictory. “I may leave tomorrow but I want these boys to go on showing what they can do. We didn’t fulfil the dream but I believe whoever comes after me will follow a path true to Argentine football.”

Asked to clear up his future, he would not commit himself.

“We will see what happens,” he said. ”I haven’t thought about it. I have to check that with my family and the players but regardless I realise that as coach and as players that the type of football people like is this one.

“Nearing 50, this was the worst thing I’ve had to live through. It’s a blow from Muhammad Ali.”

World Cup podcast – day 14

Listen!

Kevin Fylan, Paul Radford, Andy Cawthorne and Felix Bate discuss a few of the forthcoming second round matches at the World Cup, including the classic Germany v England.

Messi rediscovering the joy of youth

Lionel Messi, no longer the forlorn figure of the South American qualifiers, might have been back with the under-20s such was his influence and sheer enjoyment in Argentina’s opening World Cup match.

Messi’s demeanour and mood at Argentina’s World Cup base in South Africa is a world away from what it was at their training camp outside Buenos Aires during the qualifiers last year.

The warmth that was lacking as Messi, a genius for Barcelona but almost a passenger for Argentina, contemplated the criticism from his fellow Argentines over a perceived lack of commitment in the light blue and white stripes, has enveloped him at the University of Pretoria.

“He is being spoilt,” was the comment his mother Celia made to the sports daily Ole over the attention given to Messi by coach Diego Maradona, room mate Juan Sebastian Veron and the rest of the squad.

The Messi family and his girlfriend Antonella are staying in a rented house in a country club near the university’s sports complex where Argentina live and train and where they hope to celebrate his 23rd birthday next week with a place in the second round in the bag.

Messi’s importance to the team was evident in Saturday’s 1-0 Group B win over Nigeria, the country he tore apart almost single-handedly in the 2005 World Youth Cup final in the Netherlands.

This dominance of a game is what Argentines, including Maradona, have wanted to see from Messi, having watched his brilliant performances for Barcelona on television all season.