The World Cup (WC) is over, and now we have to content ourselves with the local leagues. Yes, it sounds like a terrible agreement but that's the way it is. I was tempted to comment on the only two surprises of the WC (Paul the octopus and Larissa Riquelme, that is) but pretty much everyone else has done so by now, so I will concentrate on two rather curious debates that have arisen after the WC.
The first one is about Spain. It is well known that Spanish people have a surprising ability to create divisions and conflicts among themselves, and for very simple reasons. (Not surprisingly, and sadly, a great deal of that ability was inherited by the former Spanish colonies...) It is also well-known that Spain as a country is actually the delicate union of several small countries, each one with their own culture and character. There is, for instance, a latent tension between the people of Madrid and Barcelona, a tension that goes deep into history and covers different facets of society, including sports. Now it turns out that some Spaniards are debating about the "contribution" of players from Barcelona and Madrid into the recent world championship. It is well known that the national team has several players from Barcelona FC (seven, I think), and this is the reason why some people in Barcelona claim that the WC is mostly theirs. People in Madrid, reply claiming that the "contribution" of coach Vicente Del Bosque and goalkeeper/captain Iker Casillas (as well as some other players from Real Madrid) is equally good. Reasonable people simply celebrate the victory of a whole nation. Granted, this useless debate is not massive, but it can be well identified in Spanish sport media commentators. The political component of this debate---the everlasting "Catalonia is (not) Spain" issue---is of course at the heart of this sterile debate.
The second debate takes place in Argentina. I think that after the WC one can safely conclude that most of us are more prepared than Diego Maradona to lead a football team. He unsuccessfully tried to compensate his lack of preparation with great doses of charisma and arrogance. This worked more or less OK in the first round (against weak opponents), and he was rather lucky against Mexico. Instead, in the last game against Germany, Maradona failed miserably. When we all were expecting a new, mentally stable coach for the Argentinian squad, we discover that not only he will be offered a four-year contract renewal, but also that the AFA (Argentine Football Association) is almost begging to him to sign! This is unbelievable. Apparently at present there are no better candidates for the position and, more dramatically, with Maradona in the bench AFA gets a lot of money through sponsors and highly payed friendly games. That's one of the reasons why AFA is not willing to get rid of DM (although they intend to change the people working with him). There is also the fact that, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, the current president of Argentina (Mrs. Kirchner) loves and supports Maradona unconditionally, and so apparently she would be terribly disappointed at AFA if DM is fired. These are sad news for the current generation of Argentinian players and common sense at large.
1 comment:
It's absurd to keep Maradona. He makes the team underperform dramatically. Then again, in Latin America these things just happen. All the time. He's managed to lose 6-1 to Bolivia and lost to Chile as well! 6-1. To Bolivia. And now 4-0 to a youngster German side, although the Germans did really play well. But seriously. That's simply too disgraceful for one of the very best teams in the world.
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