Where does Maradona go from here?

Before the World Cup many people said that Diego Maradona was nothing more than a ‘fan in a suit’. It was said that he was tactically naïve and had no idea how to coach or manage a football team.

Strong

The same people said that Argentina were simply not strong enough at the back to win the tournament and that their attacking style would be found out by the better teams.

They also said that the players had no respect for Maradona as a manager.

Up until Saturday afternoon I thought those people had got it absolutely and utterly wrong. Argentina were playing some great football, winning their games and playing the game with a smile on their face. Maradona was good value to watch on the touchline and in his press conferences and the spirit amongst the players and between the players and their manager looked to be very good.

Lesson

Of course, on Saturday Germany took them apart and handed out a footballing lesson in much the same way they had done to England. They coped reasonably comfortably with Argentina’s exciting attacking players and hit them ruthlessly, and often, on the break. Argentina had no ‘plan B’ and they simply couldn’t cope.

It started to look as though the doom mongers before the tournament may have been right all along.

After the game Maradona cut a devastated figure as I think he had started to believe that he was going to join Beckenbauer in the amazing record of winning the World Cup as a player and as a manager.

“I may leave tomorrow. I’ll have to think carefully about it, and talk with my family and the players. There are many issues here. This is the most difficult experience of my life, because to lose in front of so many good players, such good people, such good professionals is like getting punched by Muhammad Ali. I don’t have any energy left. The first cross produced a goal, and suddenly we were looking at a different game. They took advantage of all their chances. I’m as disappointed as all Argentines. To see my country lose a football match is very hard for someone who has worn the shirt.”

The defeat was the worst Argentina have suffered in the World Cup for fifty-two years. The largely disappointing Lionel Messi left the pitch in tears and the ineffective Carlos Tevez made no excuses for their performance.

“There’s nothing we can say about their win. To lose like that is very painful. We played badly and sometimes when you make mistakes you go home. We knew it would be complicated and that they wouldn’t let us attack. They did what we knew they were capable of doing. We knew they could be dangerous on set-pieces and on the counter-attack.”
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As a player, despite his well publicised personal problems, Diego Maradona was a hero around the world, but particularly, obviously, in Argentina. Whilst his appointment as manager was viewed as a strange decision there was a lot of love and support hoping he would get it right.

Poor

Their performances in qualifying were poor and they almost missed out altogether on the tournament and the media and some fans in Argentina turned against the manager. They believed he led the team with emotion and passion but had no idea of tactics or doing his homework on the opposition. Hopes for the tournament were pretty low.

Then he led the team to four wins in a row in some style and hopes suddenly started to rise. They came to a crashing halt on Saturday when they were totally out-classed.

All of the criticism Maradona faced before will surely come back even more after this game. As Tevez said, the players knew how Germany would be dangerous yet there seemed to be no plan on how to deal with that. The Germans seemed to cope pretty easily with Argentina’s great individual’s and seemed to expose the lack of teamwork and the lack of a coherent plan.

Pleased

When asked whether he was pleased with the team’s performance against Germany, Maradona replied,

“Are you joking? This is a country where you live and breathe football. I don’t think that anybody will be happy when the team loses 4-0.”

They certainly won’t be happy and I think it is unlikely that he will remain the manager of the team or indeed the manager of any other team. For a while it started to look very good for Maradona but there is now a real worry about what might happen to him now.