Adiós Hand of Gods

Mum, Dad, the other three readers

After displaying the business acumen and negotiating flare of a señor sent from AFA, there is a new era in Argentine football blogging.

Weeks of intense meetings have resulted in the end of The Hand of Gods, and the beginning of a new, revitalised Argie Bargy at FourFourTwo.com - hopefully you will join me there

Also don't forget to check out The Enganche for more news and comment

Adiós for now

River vs. Boca

Everybody knows that there is nothing that Boca Juniors and River Plate - fans and board of directors alike - enjoy more than taking a dig at their city rivals. Minutes after a superclásico, cyberspace is inundated with abuse ranging from the outright profane to clever puns about the losing side. When a title is won, even if its just the Mar del Plata Cup, Buenos Aires is plastered with posters from the victorious side not so much celebrating their success, but rather pointing how their victory rates in the all-time scale of things.

This week, of all weeks, when it looks increasingly likely that there won't even be any football played this season (there will be, but for now the outlook is bleak), there have been two incidents worthy of a place high up in the folklore of River-Boca baiting.

First up the Millionaires. As the photo below shows, the Monumental was being used for other purposes than football on the day that Google decided to take a snap.

Boca, meanwhile, are at pains to distance themselves from the colours of their new sponsor, LG. "It's maroon, not red," insisted Jorge Ameal, the Boca president.

One of the club's vice-presidents, Marcelo London, said that if the company's colours were red and white then "Boca wouldn't even sit down to discuss a deal." If you say so.

Let there be football

"Do you know why the season isn't going to kick off," offers the bored policeman at the kiosk this morning. "Because Boca owe a shit load of money and Grondona's trying to cover it up."

Given the time of day and other more pressing matters at hand, i.e. breakfast, there wasn't time to stay and enjoy a bit of chit chat with the law. It was a slightly bizarre statement, however, because to suggest the chaos that football here has descended into is the fault of one club is plain lunacy.

The other slightly incongruent aspect of the scene was that as the copper held court, up above him a 20-something year old was pasting up a new billboard poster. It was a huge advert for Daniel Passarella’s presidential campaign to become River Plate’s president in the December elections. The football's off, but the boardroom politics wrangling continues. It's as if nobody is taking this threat of the season not starting seriously.

There's more. Finally sat down with a coffee and out of earshot of Señor Policia, Olé's excellent front cover stares up – PePetrol Sand. Pepe Sand has moved to the United Arab Emirates for 10 million petrodollars. The ‘fútbol’s not kicking off’ headline is tiny. For all of Olé's brilliance with their headlines and photoshopped front pages, their editorial decisions are slightly bizarre.

There are nine days till the 'big kick off', although as things stand there is no kick off at all. How many pages is this fairly serious issue given in the sports paper? One. Even the broadsheets gave it more column inches.

Most people are confident there will be a solution sooner rather than later, although needless to say the two sides are playing hardball for now. Some supporters are far from surprised at this latest development. Others took it a bit further and went down to AFA to let their opinions be heard but let the aerosols do the talking. Thieves! was the general gist of things.

Clarín added one detail from the 'escrache' - as public protests in Argentina are called - that the rest of the media missed. The anti-Grondona leaflets handed out at yesterday's protest outside AFA were printed three years ago. The protesters haven't even got the money to print flyers. But then the enemy in their eyes is still the same as it has been for the past 30 years, let alone three. Grondona, however, sees himself as the solution, rather than the problem. And therein is the problem.

Chewing the fat

In an inter-blog meeting somewhere in cyberspace, Mundo Albiceleste overlooked The Hand of Gods' recent exile and called up to discuss the forthcoming Argentina friendly, Brazil and that goatee... You can listen here

Diego, Diego, Diego

Photo: Olé

Half way through Olé's extensive interview with Diego, published yesterday, you wondered if the question would ever come. The 8-page spread touched on just about every issue under the sun., so it seemed a reasonable enquiry. We discovered that Diego has never done an asado ('my old man wouldn't let me near it, and I have four older sisters who did everything for me'). He carries round a load of 2 peso notes to make it look like he's got a lot of cash 'in case I get robbed.' He doesn't like Valientes, the soap opera currently topping the TV ratings. He loves American football. Baseball's not bad either. Messi is 'harder to get on the phone than Obama,' but he speaks to his players regularly. As for the football, Verón will be in the team to play Brazil in September.  The 4-3-3 is out of the window for now. 'There's no time to perfect it.' Riquelme is history, although he'd make the squad more competitive. 

The real question, however, why the goatee, Diego?, never came. Not even a whisper of it.

Disappointed as we may be to miss out on this valuable piece of information, it was the most extensive one-on-one given by Maradona The Coach so far. It comes ahead of a friendly in Russia (which 'gets in the way' of preparation for the Brazil game'), for which Mario Bolatti and Jesús Datolo both have been called up and have the chance to shine on their national team debuts. 

More importantly, the interview was published at a down time when the heat is off Diego after the Ecuador fiasco, but everyone knows that the pressure match with Brazil is just around the corner. It was an honest, open and intimate interview, showing him in a warm light. There will be more - Diego promised another chat with Olé. "I'll tell you the secret to winning a world cup, but only once we've qualified." Perhaps then we'll find out about the goatee. 

The curious case of Javier Mascherano and other stories

After a six-week self-imposed exile from Argentina, jet lag is starting to wear off, and it's also starting to wear thin as an excuse to lounge about doing nothing. And so it is that this blogger resumes duties. Somehow the new season is already imminent, but more of that in a moment.

Needless to say, it's been a packed month and a half. Vélez destroyed the romantics' dream and beat Huracán on the last day of the Clausura, which lead to El Globo organising a mass protest at AFA for the horrendous decision that went against them and essentially cost them the title. Vélez, however, fully deserved the championship as they were the most consistent side of the tournament, even if Huracán won the purists vote as the best team of last term.

Elsewhere, it's all change. Coco Basile is back at Boca, Maradona could be quitting the selección to become Portsmouth's sporting ambassador -whatever that means - and Mario Kempes almost returned to Central to coach his former club, but then didn't. Players with a great future ahead of them (Pastore) left for Europe, as have players with a great future behind them (Palacio). Estudiantes restored the nation's footballing pride by winning the Libertadores with a historic win over Cruzeiro. Argentina's atrocious form in the competition was swiftly forgotten, while the legacy of the Verón dynasty continues in La Plata. 

Attention now turns to the forthcoming season, with a fairly important caveat. It might noteven  kick off. 

The footballers union is threatening strike action if debts are not settled with players, while Julio Grondona has had enough and has told clubs to put their house in order. He won't bail them out this time. Some players are owed in the region of US$300,000 (Orion at San Lorenzo) while some clubs have debts dating back to 2004 (Newell's have yet to pay the championship bonus). Independiente's 6 million peso obligation was in part eased by the sale of Daniel Montenegro, but El Rojo still have to resolve the issue of money owed to Federico Higuaín and Ríos, who coach Tolo Gallego sacked last season. River are in arrears to the tune of 3.5 million pesos and San Lorenzo have 4 million concerns. For now clubs with debts can't register new players for next season, but even those they have on their books may not turn out if this isn't resolved.

Assuming it is settled, the 2009 Apertura is scheduled to begin mid-way through August. The superclásico is matchday 10. To those at Crítica, this comes as no surprise. A TyC source told the paper that the fixtures are rigged. No weekend has two clásicos at the same time, to avoid losing TV audiences. If a club has elections coming up, the club will be given an easier run in. The superclásico is always half way through the campaign, to avoid a blood bath over a potentially title-deciding game. "I'd rather go to war than look at our fixture list," said Tolo Gallego just yesterday. Changing the fixtures isn't a battle he'd win, however, if the TyC source is right.

Finally, there are posters and flyers all around Buenos Aires professing to have discovered the truth about Javier Mascherano. Ostensibly, it appeared that some people with too much time on their hands have put together a film about Mascherano having an engine put inside him, explaining the capitán's astonishing work rate. Some forums are saying its just a publicity stunt for Fiat's new engine. So it's business as usual in Argentina then. 

Diego, Diego, Diego - Period pains and lice

photo: Olé

Another home game, another round of carnage at Ezeiza in the build up. Colombia at home and Ecuador (whisper it) at altitude is what faces Argentina in the coming days, but when some silly  journalists wanted to talk about things like who would be in the starting line up, about Verón, about whether Argentina can play like Barcelona play and other ridiculous 'sporting' issues, the real agenda returned to the fore.

"I've had enough of him," said Maradona of the under-21 coach Sergio 'Checho' Batista. It's been four months since the national youth team coach, and the full national team coach last spoke, by Diego's own admission. "It seems like he's got PMT. It's got to stop. What does he want me to do? Give him a kiss on the lips?" Ever the poised, urbane and charming public speak, DT Diego hadn't finished. "Everytime the national team play, I open Olé and there's Checho. All I'm asking is that he shows me respect, like the respect I show him." PMT. Kiss on the lips. Showing respect. Just think about that for a moment. 

While local TV stations chose to put hands firmly over their ears, hermetically seal their eyes, sing LALALALA and write headlines like 'MARADONA: THERE'S NO PROBLEM WITH BATISTA', there was more to come.

'Diego, what do you think about the pit...'

"It's a disaster."

'That's what I wanted to ask you becau...'

"I can say that the pitch I played on in Fiorito was better," said Pelusa, in reference to the dusty field in Villa Fiorito where Diego first kicked the pelota to the sound of the Argentine equivalent of Hovis-advert music. Less than a week ago, one of Argentina's most popular bands - Los Piojos (The Lice) - played a farewell gig at River Plate's Monumental. The same stadium which is the only one permitted by FIFA for the national team to play at because of its capacity. The same one that guarantees River 15% of the gate every time the selección play there. "It's awful. Players like Messi, Aguero, Tevez, Mascherano and Gago, who are worth millions, can't play on a pitch like that." 

What followed was the usual 'Grondona isn't helping, I'm not happy but (shrug of the shoulders) what can I do?' from the national team coach. The excuse is made, should things go wrong against Colombia, which they probably won't. And things probably won't go wrong against Ecuador either. They will qualify for the World Cup in South Africa next year. The problem facing Argentina, of course, is not other teams. It is themselves.