It is confirmed. Alfio BASILE will be Argentina’s manager until South Africa 2010. There are no more questions about it.

The big story these days in Argentina is when will he leave BOCA JUNIORS to concentrate full time on his national manager role.

Apparentely, that novel is near the end now and he will step out of BOCA when his off-season tour of Mexico is over in the next few days.

A member of BASILE’s staff in BOCA (Jorge RIBOLZI) will take over as an interim manager until Mauricio MACRI (BOCA’s president) finds the right man to become the next full time manager.

So far, Diego MARADONA, Marcelo BIELSA and Ricardo LA VOLPE have rejected the chance of succeeding BASILE at the helm of the most popular club in Argentina.

In other news, Argentina’s friendly match against South Africa (originally scheduled for August 15th) was postponed but now it looks like there are chances for it to be played in Cape Town.

If it’s confirmed, this could mark BASILE’s debut.

There are rumours of Argentina going to play a friendly in Japan and another in Korea in November.

The rest is still a mystery.

Hi everybody, I’ve been away from the computer for a couple of days and so I didn’t update this blog during the weekend.

There were not so many news worthy of a mention but here are some things that happened while I also start to take a look at what’s coming up in this blog.

-BASILE went to Mexico with BOCA JUNIORS and they won the Copa Puebla (a friendly contest against Mexican side CRUZ AZUL. They won the penalty shoot-out after a 2-2 draw (with both of BOCA’s goals coming from cult hero Guillermo BARROS SCHELOTTO).

-Mauricio MACRI is also in Mexico and he will meet up with Ricardo LA VOLPE to talk about his possible role as manager of BOCA JUNIORS.

-Diego MARADONA has been offered the job by MACRI before, but the legendary champion of the World in 1986 said ‘No, thank you’.

-Carlos TEVEZ returned to action for CORINTHIANS (Brazil). He scored in a 2-2 draw against FORTALEZA and he made a gesture towards his team’s supporters asking for silence, after the ‘torcida’ spent most of the game and the previous days, insulting their players for a bad run of results that have them in the relegation zone. After the match, the CORINTHIANS supporters waited for TEVEZ outside the stadium and they insulted him for a while. One fan even kicked TEVEZ’s car when he was leaving the stadium.

-Juan Pablo SORIN could be on his way to BOLTON WANDERERS. An offer by the English Premiership outfit has been accepted by VILLARREAL but now it remains to be seen if STUTTGART, PORTSMOUTH and INTER MILAN will continue to fight for Argentina’s captain.

-Javier SAVIOLA could also be on his way to BOLTON. No further news about his situation, but a move to the Reebok Stadium looks probable.

What’s next?

-We’ll take a look to the national basketball team and its final preparation towards Japan 2006.

-We anticipate the start of the Apertura and the most important leagues in Europe, following the argentine players every weekend.

After the AFA offered Alfio BASILE the job as manager of Argentina, we are still waiting for COCO to accept or reject it. But reading between the lines and making a simple deduction, we have reasons to believe that BASILE will become Argentina manager again.

The first reason is given by BOCA JUNIORS. The actual employers of BASILE at the moment are allready looking for a manager to replace him. They know they have little time to waste as the start of the Apertura (Opening) Tournament is getting near and near.

The latest news in that front is that Marcelo BIELSA has been offered the job and was pretty quick in rejecting it. Mauricio MACRI, BOCA JUNIORS president, said he didn’t offer the job to anyone yet and he added: ‘It is impossible to reject an offer that has never been made’.

In any case, BIELSA said he doesn’t want to go to BOCA and now every way takes to Ricardo LA VOLPE.

Mexico’s manager during the recent World Cup, Ricardo LA VOLPE have said he would love to have the opportunity to sit on BOCA’s bench and will be looking forward to receive an offer from MACRI.

We still need to see a couple of more episodes in this novel, but by the look of it, BASILE taking over as Argentina manager looks pretty much a done deal.

Those ‘old’ enough to remember USA ’94 will remember him and, most importantly, the way that Argentina team played. With players like Diego MARADONA, Gabriel BATISTUTA, Claudio CANIGGIA, Diego SIMEONE and Fernando REDONDO to name a few, Argentina was one of the more attractive teams and some magical displays turned them into the hot favourites to win it all.

But tragedy struck and Diego MARADONA tested positive in a doping control and soon it was all over. Not only because our star player was banned from the World Cup, but more because the morale dropped like a bomb and we couldn’t managed to make 2 passes in a row.

In any case, Alfio BASILE’s story starts way before all those events and here I’ve prepared a couple of facts and figures for you to know him better.

Born on November the 1st, 1943 in Bahia Blanca (a city 800 kms to the south of Buenos Aires in the same province of the capital city. Just as a curiosity, it’s the home town of basketball legend Manu GINOBILI and Boca Juniors’ star and national team member: Rodrigo PALACIO).

He started his career as a footballer playing for Bahia Blanca’s local team BELLA VISTA as a tall, strong, hard tackler central defender.

Later on, he became a key figure in that incredible RACING CLUB’s (yeah baby!) team that was undefeated for 39 matches, winning the league in 1966 and then becoming the first team from Argentina to win the European-South American Cup, beating CELTIC (Scotland) in three final matches.

Before his retirement from football, he won another national league in 1973 with HURACAN (a Buenos Aires club which name means: “HURRICANE”) with Cesar Luis MENOTTI as a manager.

Started off as a manager and throughout his career he has managed: Chacarita Jrs., Racing (Cordoba), Instituto (Cordoba), Rosario Central, Racing Club, Huracan, Velez Sarsfield, Talleres (Cordoba), Nacional (Uruguay), Atletico Madrid (Spain), San Lorenzo (1998) and America (Mexico) 2000/2001.

After winning promotion back to the first division with Racing in 1985, he won the first edition of the Supercopa (a tournament played between all the Copa Libertadores winners) in 1988.

And soon after, Julio GRONDONA trusted him to take care of Argentina, replacing Carlos Salvador BILARDO after Italy ’90.

He won the Copa America in Chile 1991 with an incredible team (Gabriel BATISTUTA, Diego SIMEONE and Claudio CANIGGIA being the stand out performers).

He repeated that title in Ecuador 1993, not playing so greatly and suffering before beating Mexico 2-0 in the final match with a brilliant Gabriel BATISTUTA again.

With Argentina he has an impressive record of 49 matches with 26 wins, 17 draws and only 6 defeats.

Then the mentioned fate in the USA 94 World Cup when we crashed in eight finals against Romania and amongst other achievements we can find the 33 matches undefeated, the Kirin Cup in 1992, the King Fahd Cup in 1992 and the Franchi Cup in 1993 (all of them being minor friendly cups).

Back from his experience at America (Mexico’s most popular team) he was hired by Boca Juniors (Argentina’s most popular team). He managed in four competitions and he won all of them. Two league titles plus the South American Recopa (Cup winners cup) and the South American Cup (something like the UEFA Cup).

Those are some quick facts about him and his career.

I think Argentina is in good hands.

VAMOS COCO!

When everything seem to be set for next week, Julio GRONDONA already made the move and has offered the manager position for Argentina to Alfio “COCO” BASILE.

It remains to be seen whether BASILE will step out as BOCA JUNIORS manager and accept the challenge.

If he says ‘yes’, it’ll be his second spell as Argentina manager after taking care of the national team after Carlos BILARDO left following Italy ’90.

BASILE have won 2 Copa America (the last 2 major trophies won by Argentina) in Chile 1991 and Ecuador 1993.

He led the team to a run of 33 matches without defeat and was ultimately knocked out of USA ’94 by Romania in eight-finals after the Diego MARADONA scandal being disqualified from the World Cup after testing positive in a drug test.

My opinion?

I’M THRILLED!

COCO BASILE is my favourite and if he accepts (his relationship with BOCA was never the best one, despite having won all 4 trophies at stake) he will have the second chance he deserves after suffering from what happened with Diego in 94.

He is a great leader and he won’t be afraid of using all of our talented attacking players at the same time.

Come on, COCO! Say yes!