The Official FIFA World Cup 2010 Build-Up Thread

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http://goal.com/en-us/news/82/south-america/2010/02/10/1784731/south-american-dispatch-maradona-slams-the-door-on-riquelme

South American Dispatch: Maradona Slams The Door On Riquelme
Goal.com’s Tim Sturtridge reports on Argentina’s head coach refusing to give ground on Riquelme, while Cabanas’ wife questions the actions of bar staff.
By Tim Sturtridge
Feb 10, 2010 8:00:00 AM

[quote]Diego Maradona ruled out the chance of Juan Roman Riquelme making a return to the Argentina team in time for the Word Cup during a typically candid press conference.
Speaking ahead of tonight’s friendly with Jamaica in Mar del Plata the Argentine coach slammed the door on recent speculation that the Boca Juniors playmaker would be a making a return to the national set-up.

It was AFA president Julio Grondona who kicked off the debate when he announced that he wished to talk to Riquelme about the possibility of a recall. Riquelme seemed receptive to the idea but demanded that the words came from Maradona and not Grondona.

Instead of using his pre-match press conference to build bridges with his estranged star, Maradona made it clear he was in no mood for reconciliation.

“I’ve already called up Riquelme once and he didn’t come. I wish him well and hope he can once again find his best form for Boca so he can help his club. The fact remains I called him up and he didn’t come. I love the player but it is a closed issue.”

Maradona also gave a muted response to the criticism he has received at the hands of Racing Club’s head coach Claudio Vivas. Maradona listed Racing’s defender Lucas Matias Licht but Vivas ordered the player’s withdrawal due to injury.

“I will not answer Vivas here. I would like to give more details but I know how it would be reported in the newspapers.”

Velez Sarsfield midfielder Victor Zapata is another who has been critical of Maradona and now the player has run out of patience waiting for his call-up. Zapata was surprised to have been overlooked by Maradona given that the Argentine coach has called up over 100 players since taking over.

“I don’t think Zapata was called up by Basile or Passarella either. Anyway, he has a Copa Libertadores game on the same night so I must respect his coach Ricardo Gareca and not take his player away.”

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world-cup/story/_/id/740374/ce/uk/?campaign=rss&source=soccernet&cc=5739&ver=global

Maradona slams Valdano
February 11, 2010

Argentina coach Diego Maradona has hit out at Real Madrid director general Jorge Valdano for not doing enough to help the national team.

Madrid currently have three Argentine players on their books - Gonzalo Higuain, Fernando Gago and Ezequiel Garay - and Maradona believes his team-mate in 1986 should be helping his compatriots get regular football ahead of the World Cup.

“Valdano is one the biggest rivals to Argentina at the moment because he first sent Gabriel Heinze away from Real Madrid and has now prevented Fernando Gago from leaving in search of regular football,” said Maradona.

"He knows they are two players that I have in mind for the World Cup. Fortunately Gabriel is somewhere he can play [Marseille] but Fernando doesn’t play and I can’t call a player into my team that is not match sharp.

"He [Valdano] is doing the same with Gonzalo Higuain, even though he is scoring more goals than [Karim] Benzema and Raul.

“I think it’s disgusting that an Argentinian is preventing other Argentinians from playing regularly. I know that many things are decided by the coach Manuel Pellegrini, but it seems to me that Valdano is not doing enough to help our guys.”[/quote]

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Hopefully either Ashley Coles injury or his farce of a love life will ruin his chances of making the WC.

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Came across this article on the BBC website. Well worth a read…roll on June.

Argentina boost World Cup credentials

Tim Vickery | 08:16 UK time, Monday, 8 March 2010

The warm-up work could hardly have gone better for the South American World Cup sides in action last week.

Paraguay had trouble finding opposition and had to settle for a visit to Athletic Bilbao, who fielded an under strength side. No problem. Coach Gerardo Martino had plenty to smile about after his side’s 3-1 win.

Oscar Cardozo, a target for the boo boys back home, finally found the form he produces for club side Benfica and scored twice but, more importantly, star man Roque Santa Cruz is showing signs of coming good at the right time. In the presumed absence of Salvador Cabanas, recovering from a shooting in Mexico City, this is good news indeed.

Uruguay gave notice of their firepower with a thoroughly convincing 3-1 win away to Switzerland. With Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez, backed up by Sebastian Abreu and Edinson Cavani, the Uruguayans have plenty of dangerous strikers, but the big recent development has been the emergence of Nicolas Lodeiro as a playmaker, providing new layers of subtlety to what was a crash, bang, wallop side.

Dunga’s Brazil, meanwhile, underlined that they will be the team to beat in South Africa with a typically clinical 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland.

But the week’s big winner was Argentina coach Diego Maradona. While other teams went into their games with World Cup systems and personnel more or less defined, this was not the case with Argentina when they took the field in Germany.

But when the whistle blew to end an intense match in Munich, they had won by the only goal and Maradona could feel happy that, after the confusion of their qualifying campaign, he finally had a team to take to the World Cup.

Argentina’s coach has called up countless players in his brief reign, but the team which beat Germany showed just one change from the one which sealed qualification with a 1-0 win away to Uruguay five months ago.

The striking thing about the side is the defensive line made up of four centre backs - on Wednesday, it was Nicolas Otamendi, Martin Demichelis, Walter Samuel and Gabriel Heinze (some might quibble with Heinze, who has played at left-back - but when he took over Maradona was adamant that the ex-Manchester United man should be considered as a centre-back).

Against Uruguay, this looked like a one off - a way of countering the opposing strikers in a match where a draw was good enough. Now it looks like something more definitive.

Sorting out the defence was Maradona’s most urgent priority, and given the fact that the Germans had just one shot on target, his back line passed the test. But fielding four centre backs has implications for the team in possession. It means that there will be no consistent repeat of the pretty midfield patterns weaved by 2006 side, with the elegance of Riquelme at its hub. This team will inevitably be more based on the counter-attack.

It is a very different approach from the expansive passing football in which Lionel Messi shines at Barcelona. There, he has Daniel Alves as an explosive right-back, opening up the flank and creating space for Messi to cut in on the diagonal.

Argentina, however, have Nicolas Otamendi at right-back, a promising defender but one with few attacking skills, and on the right of midfield is Newcastle’s Jonas Gutierrez, who ran and covered for the entire 90 minutes against the Germans, but who is not the sharpest of offensive weapons.

Messi, then, is sacrificed. But that doesn’t mean he is useless. Maradona intelligently made a point of defending his number 10 after the Germany game. Without doing anything extraordinary, Messi was fundamental to Wednesday’s victory.

He likes the ball played to his feet, so the opposition crowd men around him to reduce his space. With the defence sucked across, space opens up for Juan Veron to hit the diagonal ball for Angel Di Maria on the other flank. The Benfica flyer enjoys the ball played in front of him, and has the pace and left foot to do serious damage. Reminiscent of Veron’s link up with Claudio Lopez a decade ago, that partnership with Di Maria looks vital to Argentina’s World Cup bid.

There is a danger, though, that the counter-attackers might themselves be counter-attacked. Playing away to both Uruguay and Germany perhaps suited Argentina’s new system. The onus to take the initiative was with the opposition.

But things will be different in the World Cup, especially in the group phase against Nigeria, South Korea and Greece. There is the danger, against cautious rivals, that as Argentina circulate the ball their defenders might be caught in situations for which they are ill prepared.

The first half against Germany provided an example. A move down the right lost momentum when the ball reached Otamendi. He played infield, and then as Samuel burst forward he was caught in possession. A dangerous German break was only snuffed out by Demichelis clattering into the striker and picking up a yellow card.

Maradona, of course, can work on alternatives for different types of games. He might think in terms of using conventional full backs for the group games, and then reverting to his four centre-backs for the knock out stage.

He can tinker with tranquillity because now he knows that the base of his team is set. And as he recalled this week, not too many people had faith in Argentina when they set off for the World Cup of 1986…

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i cant wait myself but having a real connection with one of the teams makes a difference- me fooley & flano will have an advantage there

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I’ve come to the conclusion that England will come crashing down to earth this summer considering the way Ferdinand and Terry are playing and given their goalkeeping issues. Ferdinand appears to have lost a bit of pace after his ongoing back problems and Terry was always slow. I see them getting out of a fairly weak group but they should get found out after that.

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We should probably note that the finals start on June 11th - 62 days to go.

There’s a clock on the website.

Christ I love the world cup, I watched every one of them intensely since 1978. Aside from Ireland’s involvement in two dreadful world cups, 1982 and 1998 are my favourites.

I’m backing Spain, as Barcelona is in Spain. Naturally I’ll be delighted to see Argentina do well also. I look forward to England imploding, no WC is complete without it.

Hopefully Australia will do well, as anything that raises the profile of the game here and increases the chances of it being held here in 2018 / 22 is a good thing, though they have a bastard of a group.

The games will be on late night / very early morning for me in Aus, but I think most should be on mid morning or late afternoon for you boys in Eire, yes?

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the single most inane post in the history of this forum,why fitzy needs to inform us that he is excited at the upcoming world cup ill never know

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Why thank you NCC, I’ll die happy knowing that you’ll never know…

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:clap:

Very good post.

Agree with the content, impressed with the articulation and delivery, excellant post mate.

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

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just throw in a few random :smiley: :clap: :rolleyes: when you’re postin Fitzy, that should keep Ncc happy

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I doubt anything would keep her happy Padjo, there seems to be a complete disappintment with the world and her place in it in everything she posts.

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A somewhat freudian slip there by Fitzy

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I’m drinking bottles tonight Fran…

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http://www.thefreekick.com/board/public/style_emoticons/default/pint.gif

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good to see the DBP cleaning house in some other threads :clap: :clap: :clap:

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The completed Panini 1990 World Cup sticker album:

http://www.footballspotter.com/complete-panini-italia-90-collection/

Have. Have. Have. Need. Have. Have. Need.

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Fantastic hairdo on Chris Waddle

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That’s only the cheapo one.

Who produced the hard back red covered binder edition? Now THAT was a sticker book.

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Orbis World Cup '90. I dug it out from the attic the other night. Completed the whole thing - every sticker and every part. :clap:

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Scan it and post it up please, sid.