What Is He Smoking?
By: Jeremy | October 28th, 2008AFA boss, and raving mad lunatic, Julio “Pulling Names Out Of A Hat” Grondona has decided that lack of any real managerial experience or even personal stability is just what the Selection needs. Yep. You guessed it. Diego Armando Maradona is the new coach of the Argentine National Team. Well Diego and a host of others.
Apparently Grondona thinks that having one man in charge of the Selection has been done to death. So he ups and decides on using a committee approach, with Diego as the head. On the ‘team’:
General Director -Carlos Bilardo -you remember him 2 World Cups in charge of the albiceleste brought first and second place finishes;
Assistant Coach - Pedro Troglio - teammate in 90 and not much coaching success.
TrainerFernando Signorini - Diego’s personal trainer.
Sergio Batista - current U-20 and reigning Olympic Gold Medal winning coach;
Jose Luis Brown - played on the 86 World Cup squad and went on to be a journeyman coach at multiple clubs with no real success and is the current U-17 coach.
With the more is more mindset, Gabriel Batistuta and Sergio Goycochea may also join the team as well as other ex-Selection teammates Julio Olarticoechea and Héctor Enrique.
Grondona, who runs the AFA like a mafia crime family, said that only one person making decisions doesn’t work and that is hasn’t work for a long time. Yes, he actually said that. This decision smacks of one made by a committee. Only a group of guys on different pages could come up with such a lame ass idea.
Just to be clear on this, he could have had Carlos Bianchi - clearly the most qualified candidate out there, but he is not one to kowtow and wanted total control of the job. So Grondona move on to someone a little bit more malleable- el Diez. He’ll surround him with a strong staff, and try and shield him from the worst of the media barrage and whisper sweet nothings in his ear so that the Selection will be more an extension of Grondona than Maradona. Why he didn’t just up and name himself coach is beyond me.
It’s hard to see any winners in this situation, except a selfish Grondona who will wield even more influence on the National Team than ever. The Argentine fans are losers, because a guy who shouldn’t be coaching weekend youth soccer is now in charge of the Selection. The Selection loses because they have a shall we say less than qualified coach. And Diego loses, because when this little experiment ends badly (and it’s hard to see a way that it won’t) for him, he will be out on an island, having lost much of the respect and adoration of the fans. What happens to a Diego then? It’s not like he was making great decisions when things were going his way.
This wasn’t the right time to name him coach, nor the right way. He will be surrounded by a group of co-coaches and the players will always be looking over his shoulder. He’ll never be able to put his stamp on the team - Grondona won’t allow it. You don’t think Bilardo won’t have a lot to say? Or the others? Who decides on the squad? Who decides friendlies? Who decides on tactics? It’ll be a -dona all right, just not Maradona.
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Comments | Add your comment
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Maradona’s first coaching experience, he shared the role with Carlos Fren (a former player from Diego’s days at Argentinos). They earned 4 points out of 12 possible and then both left the team, Mandiyú de Corrientes.
His 2nd stint, he and Fren again took the reins at Racing Club. 2 wins, 6 draws and 3 losses while with Racing.
Overall numbers as coach. 3 wins. (!!!) 12 draws and 8 losses
So, we know he has experience working with other, ex-players. And that’s about it.
The rest is an experiment.
Wow.
I don’t know what else to say.
Wow.
Posted from
United States
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Wow about sums it up. I’ve never even been to Argentina and I feel shafted. This is one of those moments I will never forget. When I got home and checked Clarin I was shocked.
The only good that I can see in this is that you know Sepp Blatter just drank a whole bottle of Maalox.
Posted from
United States -
love this move, it will either destory Argentina or…..destroy Argentina…..which is welcomed new for us Ecuadorians hoping for a WC birth.
But in all seriousness, this might actually turn out to be a good move.
Posted from
United States -
It may not destroy Argentina soon enough for Ecuador this World Cup, but it will most likely destroy Maradona.
There are going to be too many chiefs and not enough indians on that staff. That’s not counting Grondona’s influence from the outside. It’s hard to see how this could go well, but what do I know?
Posted from
United States -
I dont care if he is a Boca legend - THIS SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!
Posted from
United States -
I love Diego and Boca Jrs but this is so effing dumb. Dude never proved himself as a coach. Grondona should have given total control to Bianchi a pure futbol genius. No they give to Mr Cabesita negar Maradona. It should have been Checho Batista if Bianchi declined the role.
Posted from
United States -
the only good i see out of this whole situation is that we get to see batigol back with the selection team and we get another great futbol mind in Bilardo who I guess will be calling most of the shots.
Posted from
United States -
With this sort of ‘quality’ administration, we might as well have the Argentine government nationalize the team.
Posted from
Canada
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