What Price Argentina & Portugal?

October 26, 2009

When the UK woke up to the news that Argentina had pulled off the great escape and qualified for the 2010 World Cup, the collective groan would have shook the European cornflake mountain. Public Enemy Number 1, Diego Maradona, had almost led his country into oblivion but somehow they managed to squeeze through to their tenth consecutive finals in the last week of qualifying.

The last time they came so close to disaster, current general manager Carlos Bilardo was in charge, with Maradona his saviour at Mexico ‘86. Can Maradona repeat the trick in South Africa 2010? He himself has a player in Lionel Messi who could be to Maradona what Maradona was to Bilardo twenty four years ago.

In the end Argentina qualified four points ahead of Uruguay, who face a play-off against Costa Rica, and five ahead of Ecuador, who miss out altogether. It was much closer than that.

An incredible finale to the penultimate match against bottom side Peru saw the Peruvians score in the last minute to make it 1-1 and put Argentina in real peril. Then in biblical storms, Martin Palermo scored an offside looking 93rd minute winner to send the home crowd into frenzy. Unbelievably, straight from the kick off, Peru player, Juan Vargas, launched the ball at goal and forced the home keeper to tip it onto the bar. Argentina were seconds, a flag, or a glove away from total disaster.

The final match saw them away to fierce rivals Uruguay with everything at stake. The winner would qualify for the 2010 World Cup. A close, but ultimately comfortable, 1-0 win saw Maradona finally take the Albiceleste through. It wouldn’t be a World Cup without Argentina he’d declared, and he’s right. However, no team have a divine right to be there and he seemed to be doing his best to make sure they weren’t.

In qualifying his use of 49 different players wasn’t the highest (Peru, Bolivia & Colombia used over 50) but nearly 80 players were tried out in a year and confusion reigned. Even the match winner against Peru, Mario Bolatti, was making his debut. Maradona constantly changed the defence and players fell in and out of favour as the roller coaster ran its course. Only Messi was ever-present. They lost six times, five away. Only three players scored more than one goal (Messi, Sergio Aguero & Juan Riquelme top scored with four) in the eighteen matches played.

Now that they are in the hat though, what price a place in England’s group? What price them going all the way to the final? Or even winning it? SkyBet have them 4th favourites at 9-1 so they are obviously paying no attention to their brush with disaster.

After the first couple of rounds the World Cup tends to throw up few shocks and the usual suspects usually rise to the top. When Germany were struggling with an average team in Korea/Japan 2002, they still made the final. The semi finals in Germany 2006 were contested by Italy, France, Germany and Portugal.

Which leads us nicely to the other country who have given themselves a chance, by the skin of their teeth – Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal. SkyBet have them 8th favourites at 18-1 and they haven’t even qualified yet.

There is still one more hurdle for Portugal to overcome but given the choice, Bosnia-Herzegovina would have been high on their list of countries to draw in the play-offs. It is by no means an easy tie, but it could have been worse, and Portugal now have a great chance of putting an awful qualifying campaign behind them.

Then in South Africa, with Ronaldo firing on all cylinders, what price Portugal going deep in the tournament? What price them meeting England again?

Ronaldo will certainly have to improve for them to have any chance. He played seven of their ten games and failed to find the net once. Top scorer was Simao with four and Portugal’s eternal problem of not having quality centre forwards could be their undoing. They need Ronaldo.

A record of just one loss in ten games looks fine at first glance but their lack of firepower saw too many draws, with three costly nil-nils at the start of their campaign, including one against minnows Albania.

If it weren’t for Denmark beating Sweden in the penultimate match, Portugal wouldn’t even have made the play-offs. That narrow 1-0 Denmark victory put Portugal’s fate in their own hands and the job was completed at home against Malta on the last day. They qualified for the eight country play-offs by a single point.

Portugal and Argentina boast arguably the two best players in the world right now. In Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal have a player capable of inspiring his country to success. Argentina will be relying on Lionel Messi to do the same. Neither did so in qualifying but don’t be surprised to either or both contesting the world cup final next summer.

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