Under 20 begin their preparation tonight

August 9, 2006

After PEKERMAN’s resignation there were changes in the AFA staff but some names remain the same. Hugo TOCALLI, PEKERMAN’s assistant manager during the last World Cup takes control of the Under 20 National Team and he will have his debut tonight in a friendly match against Australia.

The 5-time Youth World Cup winning team (Japan ’79 with MARADONA, Qatar ’95, Malaysia ’97, Argentina 2001 and Holland 2005) are preparing for the South American tournament (to be played in January 2007 in Paraguay). That competition will also serve as a qualifying tournament for the Under 20 World Cup in Canada.

But tonight, the brightest names won’t be present for Argentina. Players like Lionel MESSI or Sergio AGÜERO will not be part of the team and it is a big doubt they will join TOCALLI’s army in the near future.

MESSI has already won a Youth World Cup and he has a World Cup under his belt. It is very unlikely that he will go back to a youth level competition.

On the other hand, KUN will be granted the space and the freedom he needs to face his first season in La Liga, playing for Atletico Madrid. Besides, his situation could change if Alfio BASILE decides to call him up for the ‘big boys’.

In any case, MESSI and KUN are very high profile names and it was pretty obvious for them not to play tonight in a game with nothing at stake. There are, however, a lot of well known players also ignored for tonight’s match.

In fact, the game for tonight will be formed by virtually unknown players or young talents with no experience in the first division.

This is the probable starting eleven:

Goalkeeper:
Javier GARCIA
Defense:
Fabián CORONEL
Julián FAZIO
Matías CAHAIS
Gonzalo GARCIA
Midfield (with a lot to be confirmed)
TORRES or ACOSTA
YACOB or GONZALEZ
Sebastián BATTAGLIA (not the one playing in Boca Juniors for several years. He has the same name and surname!)
BRUNO or DE MARIA
Attack:
Juan ANTONIO
Emilio ZELAYA

Kick-off will be tonight at 9:30 PM (Buenos Aires) (1:30 AM London, 8:30 PM New York).

Apertura – 1st Week

Roy Nemer

August 6, 2006

The first week of the season is over and with it we can see a little bit more of the same.

Boca and River have won their respective matches and will fight for the title like every six months.

In Argentina there are 5 clubs considered big powers. Historically these teams are the ones with more titles, more supporters and of course, more media coverage.

This weekend, all of them have won.

On Friday, Racing played horribly but managed to beat Nueva Chicago 2-0.

Saturday saw their bitter rivals, Independiente (the club where Kun AGÜERO used to play) beating Colon de Santa Fé. Independiente came from one goal behind to win 4-1 and send a message to all the other clubs.

Early on Sunday, San Lorenzo de Almagro (managed by Oscar RUGGERI) travelled to the north of our country to face the newly promoted Gimnasia y Esgrima de Jujuy and they won 1-0 in a tricky venue.

Later on, Boca Juniors played to a goal-less first half against Banfield but Martin PALERMO (2) and Sebastián BATTAGLIA provided the fire for BASILE’s team to win 3-0, with another fine performance by Fernando GAGO in the centre of midfield.

And to finish the weekend for the “5 Grandes”, River Plate won away against Lanus. Ariel ORTEGA made a comeback for his former team but it was Gonzalo HIGUAIN who sent a cross for an own goal by VELAZQUEZ and then scored himself to put River 2-0 up.

In other news, Juan Sebastian VERON made his second coming for Estudiantes de La Plata and was active in the creative process for his team’s one and only goal in their defeat of Quilmes.

Cristian ‘KILY’ GONZALEZ is another ex-Inter playing again in Argentina. But he had another kind of luck. His team, Rosario Central, lost against Belgrano de Córdoba and KILY saw the red card in his first match in Argentina after his European experience.

Newell’s Old Boys shocked everyone by easily defeating Velez Sarsfield 3-0.

Argentinos Juniors (Diego MARADONA’s first club) won 1-0 against new boys Godoy Cruz de Mendoza, while on Saturday, Arsenal (not the one from Highbury, of course!) defeated Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata 3-1.

Did you get to see any of the action?

What do you think of the start of this season in Argentina?

Football is back!

Roy Nemer

August 4, 2006

I just came back from the stadium after watching my team Racing Club defeat the newly promoted Nueva Chicago in the start of the Apertura tournament in Argentina.

Great atmosphere, great expectation but a horrible game of football.

We won 2-0 thanks to two penalties, very well taken by former Fulham striker, Facundo SAVA (pictured below). But that was it. Nueva Chicago was the better team in the first half and they deserved a little bit more.

The best thing of the night????

I saw my childhood friend Juan Manuel passing besides me and as I recognised him we couldn’t believe it!

I watched the whole match with him talking about life and everything that happened to us since the last time we saw each other.

This is like the 4th time I lost touch with him only to see him again in the stadium 2 or 3 years later!

I’m way much happier about this encounter than with the result!

I’ll publish some pictures and hopefully some videos too (as soon as I have the time).

Hopefully, the pics and the videos will help you to see just a little glimpse of how we live football in this part of the World.

ARGENTINA TO FACE BRAZIL IN LONDON!

Roy Nemer

August 1, 2006

WOW!!! I know this is not very professional but hey! Listen to this:

Argentina will face Brazil at the brand new Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium in London. The game will mark the debut for Alfio BASILE at the helm of Argentina. DUNGA, his Brazilian colleague will debut against Norway on August 16th and he already left RONALDO, RONALDINHO, ROBERTO CARLOS and CAFU out of the list for that match.

The friendly match is scheduled for September 2nd and I’ll do everything to try and attend that match but it looks like mission impossible at the moment!

This is the kind of ‘friendlies’ (because it’s never a friendly against Brazil) I like to play!

It remains to be seen what will happen with BASILE and his Boca Juniors compromises as he has to stay at the club until the Recopa against Sao Paulo (there is a clear clash with some of the dates: Argentina vs. Brazil is schedule for September 2nd while Boca has to play the following day for the first leg and the 14th for the second leg.)

More news to follow but you can’t ask for a bigger piece of information!

The Others

Roy Nemer

August 1, 2006

They are less famous.

They are clearly taller.

On average, they earn less money.

And based on the latest results they’ve been getting, they are more successful.

But still, as the main character himself said it, “We, the basketball national team, will never be as popular as those who represent Argentina in football”.

Manu GINOBILI might be just about right in that concept. Basketball will never be as popular as football in Argentina, but this team is really pushing the limits and, based on talent, sacrifice and an incredible team spirit, they are slowly becoming sporting legends in this country.

When Hugo SCONOCHINI drove to the hoop with the clock ticking down the very last seconds of the Indianapolis 2002 World Championships, he was clearly fouled. It was a pretty evident foul. For everyone, except for the Greek referee who was standing in front of the action. We turned out to be on the losing side that time and it was unfair after everything that team managed to achieve.

Argentina played superbly all along that tournament and for further proof, the USA Dream Team can really say something about it. They suffered their first notorious defeat against us. Losing on home soil was to add injury to that for them and to magnify the feat for Argentina.

Fabricio OBERTO and Manu GINOBILI, both now playing for San Antonio Spurs in the NBA, said that if it wasn’t for that defeat in Indianapolis against Serbia & Montenegro in the final match, Argentina wouldn’t have had the right motivation to become Olympic Champions two years later in Athens.

That amazing campaign ranks amongst the most glorious achievement in the history of sports in Argentina. Everybody knows it’s not an easy thing to win a gold medal if you are Argentinean and doing it in basketball, when everybody will step against you knowing that they have to play their best game to beat you…that is really something.

Now the task is even more complicated. There are plenty of very strong teams going to Japan and the USA appear to have taking offense after a number of pathetic outings at the international stage. Now they are bringing the best they have and they seem to be really focused on winning again. And on the other hand, Argentina will play as the defending Olympic Champions. A tag nobody will ignore. A tag that could be very heavy to have on our shoulders.

In Argentina’s preparation for the World Championships, there have been a few friendly contests and Sergio HERNANDEZ’ men have won them all. Two against Venezuela and another one against Brazil.

Today, the manager was forced to make the decision and hand out the final roster. So far, 15 players were working with him and he needed to pick just 12.

The unlucky ones were Paolo QUINTEROS, Juan GUTIERREZ and Hernan JASEN.

Paolo QUINTEROS is a great scorer. A natural-born shooter.

Juan GUTIERREZ is a big man but he is still very young. He could be one great player in the future.

Hernan JASEN has experience in Europe but the quality of the rest of the squad really pushed him out of the World Championships.

So the 12 men who will represent Argentina starting on August 19th against France are:

Point Guards:
Juan ‘Pepe’ SÁNCHEZ (Unicaja, Spain)
Pablo PRIGIONI (Tau Cerámica, Spain)
Daniel FARABELLO (Varese, Italy)

Shooting Guards:
Emanuel GINÓBILI (San Antonio Spurs, USA)
Carlos DELFINO (Detroit Pistons, USA)

Small Forwards:
Andrés NOCIONI (Chicago Bulls, USA)
Walter HERRMANN (Unicaja, Spain).

Power Forwards:
Luis SCOLA (Tau Cerámica, Spain)
Leonardo GUTIÉRREZ (Ben Hur, Argentina)
Gabriel FERNÁNDEZ (Varese, Italy).

Centers:
Fabricio OBERTO (San Antonio Spurs, USA)
Rubén WOLKOWYSKI (Khimky, Russia).

It is believed that the starting lineup to face France will be:

Juan SANCHEZ, Manu GINOBILI, Andrés NOCIONI, Luis SCOLA and Fabricio OBERTO.

Our rivals in the first stage of the tournament will be:

France (19/8)
Lebanon (20/8)
Venezuela (21/8)
Nigeria (23/8)
Serbia & Montenegro (24/8)

All these matches will be played in the city of Sendai.

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