The new year is young, yes. But it is as busy as it gets with 2 national teams competing in important tournaments and several tennis players trying their luck in 2007’s first Grand Slam.
Football never stops and its crazy world have turned a minor South American U20 qualifying tournament for Canada’s Youth World Cup into an all-important contest also giving two teams the golden access to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
So the Albiceleste’s boys, without major figures like Lionel MESSI (not allowed to play but injured anyway!), Sergio AGUERO and Gonzalo HIGUAIN, now have the tough task of sending Argentina to the Olympics to defend the gold medal won by Carlos TEVEZ and company 3 years ago.
And it started very roughly for TOCALLI’s men. A tough match against Ecuador saw Argentina throwing away a 1-0 advantage to finish 1-1 only to do the same against Colombia, this time even managing to lose it conceeding two late goals.
A light of hope came last night with a 6-0 thrashing of a very “dirty” Venezuela and now we could even lose against Uruguay and still qualify for the second round (if Colombia beats Venezuela and we don’t lose by 5 goals). Of course I would like Argentina to take the field with determination and end this first round in high spirits.
Women’s field hockey keeps on growing in Argentina and Las Leonas are playing at home in this year’s Champions Trophy. Two wins in as many matches (Germany and Spain) give MINADEO’s girls a boost before playing against the dangerous Dutch team.
We’ll see how it goes in the next few days.
Tennis?
After losing the Davis Cup final against Russia in the end of 2006, this new year started very badly for our racket men and women.
Only Gisela DULKO managed to win in the first day of action at the Australian Open and at the moment of writing David NALBANDIAN (arguably Argentina’s best chance to fight for the title) is on the verge of elimination in the first round against the Serb TIPSAREVIC.
The story is different for our football players in Spain, with HIGUAIN having an assist for Real Madrid against Zaragoza and Maxi LOPEZ, Javier SAVIOLA and Sergio AGUERO all scoring last weekend.
