It might sound a little old. Germany is about to face Italy in one of the semifinal matches and I’m still here talking about what could’ve happened last Friday.

Well, I wanted to write this a little bit before but I couldn’t so I hope you understand this and don’t take it like I’m still crying (even though, maybe I am!).

Because I want to talk about Lubos MICHEL and the way he influenced the quarter-final encounter between Argentina and Germany.

First of all, I don’t think he was scandalously one-sided. But in my eyes, there have been a number of dubious calls that inclined the game in Germany’s favour. His tendency to call every little episode in favour of the Germans, made our footballers play conditioned.

I might not list them in chronological order. I’ll throw them here as I remember them.

The first one that comes to my mind is probably the most exemplifier of all. It was a foul he (and only he!) saw from Carlos TEVEZ when the Apache simply touched the ball backwards really near Argentina’s box. It was a very dangerous free-kick for Germany and there was no way in the whole galaxy that was near to be a foul.

The most popular of his infamous calls seems to be the penalty claim we all made when Maxi RODRIGUEZ was brought down by LAHM inside the German box. Yes, MAXI exaggerates his fall a little bit, but there was contact. LAHM touches MAXI with his right leg and a foul should have been called. What would have happened if it was the opposite and a German player was brought down inside Argentina’s box? Would Mr. MICHEL signal a foul if that tackle was anywhere but inside the German box? I think so. Oh yes. Just watch the action and pay attention to the complimentary hand in the back by LAHM to MICHEL in a way of saying: “Way to go, ref. This is exactly what you have to do all day!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGJ6LcujXkE (Thanks Orlin for the link)

When KLOSE charged with his elevated knee against the anatomy of poor ABBONDANZIERI there was a foul called and there is not much more to add to that. Maybe a yellow card would have been an option. Oh…no…I’m sorry…KLOSE is German. No way he was going to see yellow for that action.

And here’s one that really shocked me. Unfortunately the official transmission didn’t show the replay (I wonder why?). But there was a ball falling inside the German box and Michael BALLACK touched it with his hand. A few Argentina players started asking the ref about it, but all their claims fell in deft ears.

There was also contact between AYALA’s arm and BALLACK’s head inside the Argentina box, but I don’t think it was a foul. AYALA was looking the other way. In any case, BALLACK’s exaggerated fall should have been awarded with a yellow card (if the ref thinks it was not a foul). Or didn’t he cautioned MAXI because he thought he dived?

People, before some of you start to send me e-mails questioning my opinions, I would like to point out that ARGENTINA DID NOT LOSE BECAUSE OF LUBOS MICHEL. Make sure you get that straight. We lost because we were incapable of defending a lead and there is no question about it.

This article was just an exercise to let it all out and to give an echo of all the complaints I’ve been receiving about the refereeing of this match.

Hope next time around, we leave no ground to a bad referee and we can win with all justice. Since it looks like the refs in this World Cup are only making justice to keep the usual suspects happy.

Until the next Group of Death, or until the next time you keep Germany from playing Brazil before the dreamt final, dear FIFA!

June 12th, 2002. Miyagi Stadium, Japan. Argentina need to beat Sweden to advance to the Eight Finals of the World Cup Korea-Japan 2002. The two teams are evenly matched and they are still to break the scoreline.

Manager Marcelo BIELSA made Argentina one of the favourites to win the World Cup over the previous four years, but his style and his decision not to play with BATISTUTA and CRESPO together are about to take him down and leave the team and his dream to win the bloody cup in shambles.

58th minutes into the match, a free-kick for Sweden just outside Argentina’s box and BIELSA decides to replace BATISTUTA with his long-term back-up Hernan CRESPO.

The younger striker takes Batigol’s place in the wall as Anders SVENSSON prepares to shoot towards Pablo CAVALLERO’s goal.

The Swede’s strike is superb and our helpless keeper can’t do a single thing to help the ball going into the back of the net.

Argentina had to score twice in half an hour without his recently replaced all-time goal scoring leader. The team fails to deliver, while consistently keeps on trying the same formula it tried against England in the previous game: running through the wings and crossing the ball to cheaply give it away to the big opposing central defenders.

Our talented offensive midfielders like Pablo AIMAR, Ariel ORTEGA or Marcelo GALLARDO are totally ignored and left out with this incredibly silly style of football that, of course, doesn’t suit them like the creative passing game they are used to play since they were little boys.

June 30th, 2006. Olympiastadion, Berlin, Germany. Argentina is beating the hosts 1-0 and is ready to advance to the World Cup semifinals for the first time since Italy 90. The team is playing a good game (not brilliant) and is in control since kick-off.

Germany is starting to run out of ideas (if they ever had one, in the first place). Another cross comes to Argentina’s box and as Roberto ABBONDANZIERI prepares to catch the ball in mid-air, he is meet by Miroslav KLOSE’s right knee and the referee Lubos MICHEL sees none of this.

71 minutes into the match and Argentina is forced to change their first choice keeper, one of the pillars of the team throughout the tournament.

One minute later and PEKERMAN decides to make a move that was going to be very controversial after the game. He takes playmaker Juan Roman RIQUELME out and he sends defensive midfielder Esteban CAMBIASSO to replace him.

By doing this, he sends a clear message to his rivals and to his own players: ‘I’m going to defend this lead for the next 20 minutes and hopefully we will win’.

Things are not looking bad, to be honest. CAMBIASSO gives the team a renewed energy while Lucho GONZALEZ and Maxi RODRIGUEZ can move forward a little bit and have some more possession beyond the midfield line. While TEVEZ remains a threat down the left and CRESPO navigates in dull ostracism between the German central defenders.

The problem came a little bit later.

Just like BIELSA four years before, PEKERMAN made a move that was going to haunt him down, maybe forever.

With 79 minutes gone, he brings his third and last substitute in Julio CRUZ, replacing Hernan CRESPO.

That was his last bet to maintain the lead for the last 11 minutes of the game.
He thought CRUZ, the tallest player in our squad (apart from the keepers), could help the team by winning some headers in both, our box and the German box.

Well, call it fate, call it misfortune, call it bad judgement, exactly like what happened with BIELSA four years before, one minute after that controversial substitution and Germany scores!

I think all of us thought in that very moment that it was the end. It was beautiful while it lasted, but that was it. We had three of our best players sitting on the bench (MESSI, AIMAR and SAVIOLA), while our most dangerous striker (CRESPO), our unique playmaker (RIQUELME) and, on top of that, our goalkeeper were already substituted.

Did we have the team to go after a second goal in those last 10 minutes?
NO, WE DIDN’T.

Granted, losing ABBONDANZIERI meant not only that a totally untested keeper took his place instead of our ‘Ace of Spades’ when it comes to penalty shoot-outs. It also left us with one less possibility for a change.

That’s no excuse to get it wrong.

Right after the game, PEKERMAN said in a press conference, that we were forced to make to substitutions (ABBONDANZIERI was injured and RIQUELME was exhausted).
Now, I’ve got a couple of things to say about that. I love RIQUELME and the regular readers of this blog can testify that. But I can’t understand why can a professional football player be tired after 70 minutes of play? This was not the extra time. I don’t care if he played 120 exhausting minutes against Mexico. That was one week before!

Seriously, that’s really beyond me. I don’t want to accept it. I won’t accept it.

If I’m wrong and he really couldn’t move his legs, then OK, replace him. But can you just replace him with somebody who plays in the same position? What the hell is wrong with playing AIMAR for those 20 minutes in which a player like him would be a real nightmare for the German defense with his flashy runs forward?

In any case, that substitution was more justifiable than the other one.

PEKERMAN said that against Holland, when he played TEVEZ and MESSI together, the team played greatly but they needed to have a reference inside the box. We were controlling the ball but we had no real threat in the form of a striker.

I agree with that. But here are my questions. If we wanted to just defend our 1-goal lead. Did you need to have a big man inside the box? Did you need to score? Did you need something else than having the ball and causing troubles like TEVEZ did all day long against FRIEDRICH?

The answer to all of those questions is an implacable NO!

We didn’t need a big man in the box. We had CRESPO and he did very little those 70 minutes he played.

We didn’t need to score. It was OK with a 1-0 result. We were in the semifinals. And deservedly so.

We didn’t need anything else than to keep possession. We were just fine when we were in possession and MESSI is arguably one of the best at keeping the ball and generating fouls by the opposition.

Horrible decision and we paid for them. The match went to a penalty shoot-out and there was one particularity about that. Both, Germany and Argentina were undefeated in those kinds of situations. 3 wins a piece.

But a couple of key factors eventually proved to be enough to give Germany the upper hand:

ABBONDANZIERI. A keeper with a great tradition of winning cups at club level with Boca Juniors, stopping several shots in this kind of tie-breakers, was out.

LEHMANN. A keeper with great reflexes but even better information sources. He ‘guessed’ in each and every shot by our players and later on it was discovered that he received a piece of paper containing information about the place where each Argentina penalty taker will most likely place his shot. Rocket-science? I don’t think so. I think all credit should go to the German’s goalkeeping staff for getting together this crucial information that today proves to be the difference between a great team knocked out of the cup and an average team qualified for the semifinals.

I think that I (like many millions around the World) was not prepared to be knocked out of the World Cup so early.

That said, I want PEKERMAN to stay and I’ll give you my reasons in another article soon.

But as one of the biggest sporting brands in the world says in an advertising campaign: ‘A team that suffers after being placed between the top 8 in the World, deserves our admiration’

I subscribe.

I hope, and this goes for those who have been reading my blog for some time now, that next time if we are ahead in the score, we play the only way we should never abandon: ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK, ATTACK!

If any of you know where can I buy a DeLorean, just let me know. I want to travel through time and go back to the future to see if a 23-year-old MESSI is lifting the cup in South Africa 2010.

I apologise to all of those who still didn’t get my reply after writing me at argentina.correspondent@gmail.com I couldn’t cope with all of the messages, but I’ll find the time to try and answer all of them

ABBONDANZIERI

COLOCCINI

AYALA

HEINZE

SORIN

MASCHERANO

LUCHO GONZALEZ

MAXI RODRIGUEZ

RIQUELME

TEVEZ

CRESPO

No I’m not relaxed, OK? This is the biggest match my Nacional Team has to play in a World Cup in the last 16 years!

Do you know how many things happened to me in those 16 years????

I’ve finished elementary school. High school and University. My parents got divorced. Had three long-term relationship and got married to my beautiful wife Diana. Started dreaming of becoming a professional footballer. Was convinced by the manager at one club that I better study journalism. My father died. Got a job in a big newspaper. Then resigned. Got a job in a TV channel. Then again, resigned. Went to live in England and Italy. Worked there for a while. Lost a lot of hair. Earned a lot of kilos above my belt. Came back to Buenos Aires. And still, after all those 16 years, there is one thing that’s still the same: GERMANY!

Because the Germans where our rivals in the horrible night of the 8th of July in 1990. Italy ’90. World Cup final. When the Mexican referee (CODESAL) thought it was a foul by SENSINI and decided to give Germany a penalty kick. BREHME was the scorer and we lost the World Cup. Yes, I accept our team in that tournament was rubbish. We got very lucky beating Yugoslavia and Italy on penalties…but we’re right to think we were robbed that night.

Four years before that (as The Beatles said: “It was 20 years ago today!”), again DEUTSCHLAND!

That was the first big contest between our two countries. A World Cup final! BROWN-VALDANO-BURRUCHAGA, DIEGO’s magic and a lot of suffering, before we were crowned for our second time in history.

Enough with all this time-travelling. Let’s come back to today. Because we have another final coming up. No one can deny this is like a World Cup final for us. Probably more so for Germany.

Both teams are taking it that way.

But my job is to tell you how things are taking shape in the eyes of an Argentina fan.
That’s what I’ll try to do, being totally honest:

I’M TERRIBLY SCARED! Hahahaha!

Well, not TERRIBLY, but a little bit yes. It’s normal. Don’t look at me that way. In a way, if you’re reading this, you’re feeling something similar. Don’t you?

It’s such a difficult thing to try and think how can this match be played. Two very different, yet similar teams in terms of ‘productivity’ (if you allow me the expression).

10 goals scored. 2 goals against. Group winners. The numbers suggest the two are very similar sides. Yet if you saw the way they played so far, you’ll notice Germany play a more pacy, speedy kind of football. With a lot of ‘vertigo’ and shooting from outside the area at the first chance they have.

Argentina, in contrast, play a more paused, rhythmical type of game. Passing is a commandment. Hoofing the ball is a sin. Never risk a golden chance by taking a low-percentage-shot from long range.

So I think the key for today’s match will be pretty simple: KEEP THE BALL!

If Germany can’t find the ball, they simply can’t harm Argentina.

Again, RIQUELME steps under the spot light and he looks (more than ever before) as the key figure for Argentina. He has a bad game and Argentina goes home. Quite simple. He has a good game, we might advance. He has a great game, we’re through to the semifinals. Period.

He’s the one who can slow down the whole German team and start working as a master puppeteer for Argentina.

Will he move METZELDER, MERTESACKER, LAHM, FRIEDRICH, FRINGS and company around?
Will we dance to BALLACK-SCHWENSTEIGER-SCHNEIDER-KLOSE-PODOLSKI’s music?

Whatever happens, I just hope I don’t have to sit here in 16 years time, talking about a rubbish referee or a wasted chance for our beloved team.

VAMOS ARGENTINA!

Yes, I know. Germany is coming on Friday and all our focus should be in that crucial match against them.

But I would like to write a few lines about one of football’s most intriguing players: Juan Roman RIQUELME.

I’ve been following football since as long as I can remember. I’m 29 years old and I don’t remember seeing a player as controversial as Roman in my whole life.

I don’t mean controversial in an Eric CANTONA’s way. He was either loved or hated but no one ever denied his footballing skills. And he also had a history of bad behaviour that has nothing to do with RIQUELME.

RIQUELME is controversial because if you read the Argentinean newspapers, you’ll never know if he had a good or a bad game. If you happen to go to a bar in Buenos Aires or in any other city in this country, you’ll certainly hear people sitting at a table next to yours, talking about him and you’ll see one of those guys playing the ‘defender’ part, while his friend will become the ‘prosecutor’.

It’s just like that. His performances are black or white; great or rubbish. But yet, never unnoticed.

His talent is impossible to deny. He has plenty of tricks in his bag and that’s something that is not very questioned. Even his detractors accept he has an incredible flair. A talent that was first known to the World when he was one of the key stars in PEKERMAN’s under-20 Argentina national team crowned in Malaysia 1997.

I remember him making his debut for Boca Juniors (a team I don’t support, by the way. My team is Racing Club). He was immediately criticised because he was not the type of player Boca fans wanted in their team. A Boca player is prototypically a warrior. One who never quits. One who will go for the ball like there’ll be no other, no matter what. And then, if he has time, he can also play.

But here comes this skinny young fellow, trying to make that impossible pass or maybe keeping the ball too much before being dispossessed and then, tragedy for Boca fans: HE DIDN’T COME BACK TO DEFEND AND GET THAT BALL BACK! LET ALONE A SLIDING TACKLE!

Yet, he started producing. He became irreplaceable, vital, needed in a team that started winning everything under manager Carlos BIANCHI.

Juan Roman RIQUELME started to conquer ‘La 12’ (the name of Boca’s supporters group, nicknamed as ‘Player number 12’ because his influence in a game by the way the vocally support their team makes them virtually become that extra player).

That was when ROMAN definitely conquered me. He won my respect a little bit before he won over Boca’s fans. Because he never gave up. He never pretended to change his style in order to win a standing ovation from La 12 while at the same time he never stopped trying to hit that perfect back-heel pass. That takes an incredible amount of courage, I’m not exaggerating and those of you who have been fortunate enough to attend a Boca match at La Bombonera, will agree with me.

League titles came, Copa Libertadores followed (with an unforgettable performance away at Palmeiras, Brazil) and finally he was playing against ROBERTO CARLOS, FIGO, RAUL, CASILLAS, HIERRO and all of Real Madrid’s super stars in the European-South American Cup in Tokyo.

What did he do? He had a memorable match, an assist included, and he totally controlled the game. No surprise FC Barcelona was watching and immediately after that, RIQUELME was bought.

All of that time, he was neglected by Marcelo BIELSA. Obviously, Juan Roman was not the kind of fast, first-run-then-think type of player preferred by our former national team manager. So he missed the trip to the Korea-Japan 2002 World Cup while he never got to shine at the Camp Nou as he did at La Bombonera.

‘So he started changing the way he plays, right?’ could be one of the question somebody, who doesn’t know how the story continues, may ask about him. Of course not! He went to Villarreal and he helped them to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history.

Yes, he failed that crucial penalty against Arsenal in the semifinals, but he’ll step up to take another penalty if it’s needed. He failed because he took the risk and the responsibility that comes with it.

Reading some blogs around the internet and taking a look at some local newspapers in Argentina at that time, I remember feeling sorry for ROMAN after that miss against Arsenal. All of his detractors fell harshly on his back and started a silly witch hunt against him.

Yet, PEKERMAN confirmed RIQUELME’s place in our national team while he gave him the mythical shirt with the number 10 in its back.
The World Cup came hand in hand with controversy. While he is being looked at as one of the biggest stars in this tournament by the British media (to give just one example) and chased by Inter Milan, he is being very criticised back home. And that’s what I found controversial.

Some people blame him because he has a tendency to pass the ball backwards. Some others say that’s a sign of a great player who knows when to go forward and when to secure possession and start the play once again from behind.

A fair number of critics say he is too slow for international football. Fans and neutrals find his style and the way he keeps possession while waiting for the perfect space to place the next pass as something absolutely beautiful.

I guess that if you’ve been reading so far, you’ll notice that I’m one of those who like the way RIQUELME plays. And here’s my opinion on ROMAN’s World Cup performances so far.

While he had his moments of brilliance (a perfect assist for SAVIOLA against Ivory Coast a total dominance of midfield against Serbia & Montenegro with 77 good passes and only 2 bad ones, a couple of nice tries against Holland and another assist from the corner flag for CRESPO against Mexico and one pass to SAVIOLA that should’ve ended in the back of the net), he also had his moments of insignificant play.

The positive aspect of this whole thing is clear: RIQUELME IS YET TO PLAY HIS BEST FOOTBALL IN GERMANY 2006.

He had a private conversation with PEKERMAN two days ago and the manager gave him all of his confidence for the match against Germany. RIQUELME was feeling bad about his performances and his morale was a little low.

Now he has the perfect stage for the next captivating show in his career. In fact, the stage was never bigger. We are talking about a man who always stepped up to the biggest challenges.

We are talking about a man who might not demonstrate what’s going on inside of him.

And most importantly, we are talking about a tremendous football player who has thirst for revenge and wants to laugh last.

LEHMANN will again be the goalkeeper, like when Arsenal knocked Villarreal out of the Champions League. If I was LEHMANN, I would be very very very scared of this still skinny fellow.