San Lorenzo 1 Argentinos Juniors 2
This report is late because I’m in mourning, obviously, for the demise of West Ham United football club, relegated to the ignominy of the Championship, the second division of English football, due to a mixture of gross incompetence and bad luck, but mostly gross incompetence.
Inevitably at times like this we all look to where the blame lies. The players must take a huge chunk of responsibility since they simply didn’t score enough goals or win enough games. But when a big club with resources available, good players and enthusiastic fans doesn’t perform, you perhaps have to look a little deeper. Especially when small clubs, with no great individual players, one bus-load of fans and barely enough money for a spare football, performs better than your club.
In the Argentine league I take River Plate and Boca Juniors as my examples of the former. They used to be and should still be the Real Madrid and Barcelona or the Celtic and Rangers of Argentine football. Yet they’re riddled with internal problems. Minnows such as Godoy Cruz and Olimpo are playing decent football and currently sit above the giants. Argentinos Juniors, it must be said, is also a club that punches above its weight. It has a small, tightly run operation with one of the best respected youth schemes in the country on which is built an enterprise that has enjoyed more success than many clubs twice their size.
Avram Grant -- good riddance!
Velez Sarsfield is the only big Buenos Aires club not embarrassing itself at the moment. They’re the only Argentine team in the last eight of Latin America’s Libertadores Cup and they’re atop the first division, threatening to pull away from the rest, despite a defeat at the weekend.
My point being that a team will only perform well on the pitch if things are run well off it. West Ham had too many distractions, too much turmoil, not enough focus.
You’re in a sorry situation when you check the half-time score to find your team is two-nil up and you think to yourself: “That’s it. We’re doomed.” West Ham seemed to be at their most vulnerable when they were winning. One goal leads spurred the opposition to inevitable victory, a two-goal margin was a guarantee that complacency and bungling would set in. And so it proved to be.
Two up against mighty Wigan at half-time in a game West Ham had to win. And they lost it 3-2. I was a regular at Upton Park the last time the team were relegated in 2003. I remember with particular pain a 0-0 draw against Walsall. No disrespect intended but they are a small team from an industrial estate on the outskirts of Birmingham, and we couldn’t beat them. We’re going to be proud hosts in the huge Olympic Stadium again playing the likes of Walsall.
Much is made of the corruption in the Argentine game, how presidents run their clubs like personal fiefdoms, manipulating their barra brava fans for their own political ends.
Sullivan and Gold - Porn Kings.
It’s not so different in the English game. It’s just bigger, glitzier and there’s more money involved. West Ham is owned and run by two men, David Gold and David Sullivan, who made their fortunes selling porn magazines. They took over from a rabble of Icelandic businessmen who were partly responsible for taking their country, as well as West Ham United, to the brink of financial ruin.
These people rub shoulders in the directors’ boxes of other English clubs with Arab princes from countries stuck in the Middle Ages and Russian oligarchs so rich and powerful that few dare to investigate the murky manners in which they acquired their wealth.
So it should be no surprise that our clubs, especially my club, is poorly run. Our thankfully departed manager, Avram Grant, took his last club, Portsmouth, down to the second division. That’s hardly an impressive CV but he was hired anyway.
If I sound bitter it’s because I am. It’s at moments like this, that I’m tempted to turn my back on football and take up making plastic airplane models. Thankfully, Argentinos Juniors saved me from a sad life of sticking stickers on the wings of Spitfires and Stukas and the inevitable sniffing of glue that such a hobby entails.
Here was a fine example of a team learning from its mistakes. Argentinos were dismal last week at home to Boca Juniors. But everything they did wrong last week, they did right this time against San Lorenzo. They battled in midfield, guided and cajoled by an immaculate Juan Mercier. They attacked the opposition goal, Emilio Hernández scoring a beauty early on.
Rather than sit on that lead, they kept attacking. San Lorenzo equalised but there was only ever one team going to win this game. Germán Basualdo made it safe to move the Bichos up to sixth place.
Pedro Troglio -- Well done!
Unlike the embarrassingly clueless West Ham manager, Avram Grant, the Argentinos boss, Pedro Troglio, made changes, he addressed the shortcomings, he took chances and it paid off.
This game was part of a weekend feast of sport served up to relieve me of the stresses of visiting the in-laws out in the countryside. The country air, tinged with the fresh aroma of genetically modified soya, was a welcome relief from the chug of bus and taxi fumes in Buenos Aires.
Firstly, because of the four hour time difference with the UK, I had an 11am serving of FA Cup final fare and Manchester City, a tad luckily I thought, making hard work of beating Stoke City. There was time for lunch and a spot of Andy Murray not quite being good enough to beat Novak Djokovic in Rome before watching San Lorenzo against Argentinos Juniors.
Then on Sunday we were treated to the Wigan v West Ham fiasco, a little bit of Chelsea against Newcastle then the event that dominates the Argentine sporting calendar, the superclasico, the only game that really matters – Boca Juniors versus River Plate.
River, due to the quirky manner in which relegation is decided here, are now at risk of having to fight for their top division status. Boca won this one two-nil with the second goal scored by aging war-horse, Martin Palermo, who’s announced his retirement at the end of the season. This was his final superclasico and what a way to go!
The Monday morning papers dedicated their front pages and more than half their sports sections to this game — the teams now in seventh and eighth place in the table. The top side, Velez lost 3-2 to Lanus, an event that warranted a few feeble paragraphs.
They’re followed by modest Godoy Cruz, who beat Quilmes 2-0 on Friday night and could be the surprise package this season. Another small side making a big noise, Olimpo, lost 2-1 at home to Independiente, Racing beat Newell’s 3-0, Gimnasia were 2-0 winners over Banfield and Estudiantes and Tigre drew 2-2.