The trauma and near excellence of Argentina (Part 1)

It has been 23 years since the 1993 Copa America. Twenty-three years since Argentina last won an international tournament. This may change with victories over first Paraguay and then Chile in the 2015 Copa America final on July 4.

It is a shockingly long time for a nation boasting Argentina’s all-enveloping football culture and the unremitting talent of their players. Their youth teams, to illustrate the contrast, won World Cups in 1995, 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2007, and the Olympics in both 2004 and 2008.

Year Zero of this barren run would seemingly be the traumatic 5-0 loss at home to a freakish Colombia team in 1993 (a month before they narrowly beat Australia in a play-off) but also Diego Maradona’s last run with the team and last moment of on-field relevancy, disqualified after playing two matches at the 1994 World Cup for failing a drug test.

But the team sauntered on after that tournament without too many hiccups in the next years. The 1998 team played with the growl, manliness and bad blood that had become a (maybe unwanted, maybe not) cliché of Argentinian football, encapsulated by Diego Simeone’s famous tangle with David Beckham and Ariel Ortega’s stupid headbutt at the moment of truth against Holland.

The forward Gabriel Batistuta was Argentina’s poster boy in those days, but in 1998 Juan Sebastian Veron in midfield fulfilled the type of central number 10 role that countries with pure passing cultures like Argentina and Colombia have always craved. Veron’s intelligent passing and through balls would highlight him as perhaps the best midfielder of the 1998 tournament.

But there was something undefinably missing from that team, who were outplayed for long stretches against England and Holland before Dennis Bergkamp settled things with arguably the greatest ever World Cup goal.

The next year came the introduction of another, even more classic number 10, who in his person and his idea of game style Argentines generally cherish. His name was Juan Roman Riquelme.

Riquelme plays football as if defences, opposition players crowding him out, and time itself were mere trifles. If a marker tries to rob him of the ball he will simply sidestep him holding the ball. If it then happens from a different angle, he will simply do it again and again until the correct pass can be made.

He fit perfectly with an Argentine’s conception of the game: a mixture of hardness from behind and silk in front, a hard defensive play kickstarting a multiple-player passing move, slowly and deliberately sliding the ball to the attacking central mid whose through ball is blasted or touched home by a Batistuta-esque forward.

Riquelme was the ‘pure’ player the country craves. A blogger named Elliott Turner had once cared enough to take the time to learn enough Latin phrases to write an article likening Argentina to battles of the Roman army. He later remarked (if I may pretentiously dish off literary references):

“For me, once Riquelme stopped playing for la selección it was like when the first Buendia went insane and drifted out of the focus of 100 Years of Solitude – I kept watching/reading, but with considerably less interest and enthusiasm.”

The new decade saw some changes. Argentina became minutely softer. They stopped winning the penalty shootouts and they stopped using the ‘It’s a man’s game’ types like Simeone in midfield. Their play became ‘pure’ again, without the histrionics of the previous 40 years.

But they kept losing to a Brazil side who after 1994 had reinvented themselves as winners, while the opposite insidiously happened to Argentina.

There were the lost World Cups of 2002 and 2006, each time when Argentina had the best team on paper but succumbed to increasingly terrible luck and an inability to convert magnificent ball movement into goals.

The 2002 team carried the hopes of a country decimated by the 2001 financial crisis. The currency became worthless, people had to start bartering like in pre-money times, there were five presidents of the Argentine Republic in two weeks, and the strong economy of the 1990s never reemerged.

The team featured Walter Samuel, Javier Zanetti, Juan Veron, the long-haired, captivating vista of Juan Sorin, at times Pablo Aimar (yet another number 10), Ortega (the now-forgotten focal point of two Argentine World Cups), Batistuta and Hernan Crespo. Those names rolled off the tongue for years, as late as 2010 when playing for the successful Internazionale club team.

But they were simply crowded out in defence in two consecutive matches against England and Sweden. It was a nightmare tournament for players and spectators alike, but Argentina’s freakish elimination was downright tragic.

While Argentina’s conception of the game was great that decade, they were victimised by increasingly unbearable defeats. They were seconds away from winning the 2004 Copa America but conceded a goal to Brazilian forward Adriano and subsequently wilted in the shootout.

Argentina lit up the 2006 World Cup with two incredible goals. They passed the ball around 24 times before setting up Esteban Cambiasso’s finish against Serbia, and then in extra time Maxi Rodriguez let a 30-metre crossfield pass bounce off his chest and volleyed the winner from 30 metres against Mexico.

Then came the start of Argentina’s love-hate relationship with a then 19-year-old Lionel Messi. Riquelme was prematurely substituted off in a quarter-final against Germany. Argentina then ran out of substitutes as Messi was not deemed important enough to be thrown on.

Argentina again lost a tame penalty shootout in a tournament they had previously set alight. They started a brawl afterwards, inadvertently taking Germany down with them when Torsten Frings was suspended for fighting.

To be continued tomorrow…

You are welcome to check my previous articles here about Brazil, Chile and Paraguay, and check my season reviews at http://martygleason.wordpress.com/