Monday, February 26, 2007

A star coming back amongst 20 local names

It has been rumoured that Coco BASILE will name a list of players from the Argentine league as early as this week.

The return of Juan Sebastián VERÓN is something that should not surprise anybody.

COCO wants to work with this group of players for the Copa America (Venezuela 2007 in June) but for that tournament, he will also call-up some big names from Europe.

In the meantime, he´ll have the time to work more time with his players than any regular big country national team and he can only benefit from that. Especially knowing that very soon, most of the players in the list will eventually move to Europe as well.

Now, before he makes that list public, here are the names that has been sounding strongly:

Goalkeepers:
Juan Pablo CARRIZO (River Plate)
Oscar USTARI (Independiente)

Defenders:
Paulo FERRARI (River Plate)
Daniel DÍAZ (Boca Juniors)
Eduardo TUZZIO (River Plate)
Hugo IBARRA (Boca Juniors)
Hernán PELLERANO (Vélez Sársfield)
Germán RÉ (Newell´s Old Boys)

Midfielders:
Mario BOLATTI (Belgrano)
Leonardo PONZIO (River Plate)
Fernando BELLUSCHI (River Plate)
Juan Sebastián VERÓN (Estudiantes)
Neri CARDOZO (Boca Juniors)
Agustín PELLETIERI (Lanús)
Sebastián LETO (Lanús)
Daniel MONTENEGRO (Independiente)

Forwards:
Mariano PAVONE (Estudiantes)
Ezequiel LAVEZZI (San Lorenzo)
Rodrigo PALACIO (Boca Juniors)
Mauro ZÁRATE (Vélez Sársfield)

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the list Seba. I'm personally excited about Belluschi getting a call up but there is a lot of talent on there. I had a question though regarding upcoming friendlies. Has there been any word on any South American friendlies. I mean I've been hearing about a friendly against Australia and Norway but was wondering if AFA is going to organize any South American friendlies to prepare for Copa? There is a rumor up on the Sport's Illustrated Website that there might be another Argentina v Brazil matchup to be played in the US but I'm not putting much stock into that.

-argentinafan

Anonymous said...

Hi There,

From the looks of it, we can say it is quite a promising squad. The likes of VERON, IBARRA, PONZIO and PALACIO could provide adequate experience and at the same time there is abundance of promising talent as well.

At one point, Coco will have plenty of time to gel this group of players together as he has the luxury of time. But as we have debated before (sometimes back in October last year), we still need the big boys from Europe in some aspect.

For instance the current situation in our forward line is quite critical so to speak, as I’m not too sure how are we going to be getting the goals in the absence of CRESPO or MILITO.

Nevertheless it will be interesting to see how things goes when the time comes.

By the Seba, I’ve heard some news regarding a 11 year old boy from Buenos Aires being targeted by Real Madrid, Barcelona and Espanyol. Could this boy be the next Messi?

John
Malaysia

Seba said...

Argentinafan, I haven´t heard about a friendly against a South American rival. I don´t know if that´s in store or not. Keep us posted if you hear anything else. I will, of course.

As for the 11-year-old Laureano LUDUEÑA, I haven´t seen footage of him playing and I think it´s too soon to make a judgement on whether he is the next big thing for Argentina.

If he was 15 or 16, that´s another thing because we´ve seen prodigies that age showing a lot of quality in Under 17 World Cups before making an impact in a professional league.

But 11??? Unfortunately, the current situation is bringing our boys (you can´t say kids because they are more boys than kids) to Europe at a ridiculously short age, leaving our local league in agony.

At the same time, you can´t blame the family for accepting a move to Europe because that means their life will change for the good.

Going back to the previous point, we are going to have to wait and see. I remember Leandro DEPETRIS appearing through some footage of him playing against older kids when he was only 13. AC Milan bought him and then he was loaned to River Plate to finish his youth career there but he never shone. Now he is playing in Serie B in Italy (for Brescia, I think) but he is not living up to the tag everybody impossed on him.

Same with Colombian Jhonnier MONTAÑO who rocked the Copa America with only 17 years of age in 1997 (I think) and now he is an almost retired fat footballer playing in Colombia after an unsuccessful span in Parma.

That said, I hope he is the next MESSI or KUN! Of course!

Anonymous said...

Seba,

Though most of us will be looking forward to the Copa America, as this could be our best chance of winning something.

But I’d like to highlight another tournament that I feel we should pay serious attention, which is the 2007 World Roller Hockey Championship in Switzerland. As you know we have been world champions in the event for 4 times (1978, 1984, 1995 & 2001) and I’m sure coming into this tournament we are one of the seeded teams.

Perhaps you may have some news to share with us on the build up to this competition. For your information, Argentina is in Group B alongside Angola, Chile and the Netherlands.

For more info, please log on to www.montreux2007.ch/

John
Malaysia

Anonymous said...

What about Martin Palermo. That latest goal he scored....speechless

Seba said...

Nice one John!

I remember Argentina winning gold medal in Barcelona 1992. Too bad it only was an exhibition sport and that medal didn´t count. It would have been the first gold medal in a long time for our country.

That sport is hardly mentioned in our media and I´m sure we´ll all appreciate if you keep us posted of our team´s performances and results.

As for PALERMO, it was rumoured COCO had him into consideration. PALERMO´s previous experience in our national team wasn´t the happiest of his memories and many doubt he´s got what it takes to play for Argentina.

His age could be a concern aswell as I would take Mauro ZARATE (19 and top goalscorer in our last league) over him any day.

Mariano PAVONE is someone that really intrigues me and I´m really looking forward of watching him pulling the Albiceleste.

He is a very powerful striker and he can shoot from anywhere (almost like PALERMO scoring from behind the midfield line on Saturday!).

Seba said...

The list will be released this afternoon (roughly at 9 or 10 PM London time, for you to make your calculations better!).

Apparentely, there´ll be one more player and the list will consist of 21 footballers.

The name missing from the list I published here yesterday could be central defender Gustavo CABRAL (Racing Club).

VERON sounds like pretty much confirmed.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what to think about this. I mean, I have never heard any soccer powers doing things like that. It does happened in some low-quality soccer countries like Korea, Malysia, etc, but NOt in Brazil, England, German or Italy.

We will see if the experiment is a good one. Even though personally I don't like it too much.

Seba said...

Lucy, BASILE did something similar when he first took over as national team manager after Italy 1990.

He did have some success winning two Copa America (1991 and 1993) and took our team to an undefeated run of more than 30 international matches (the right number escapes me now..something like 36).

Then Argentina were playing brilliant football in USA 94 but DIEGO failed a drug test and the whole team morale suffered a huge blow.

We´ll see what happens now but I´m confident nothing bad could come as a result of having more players being coached more time by our national team manager.

Seba said...

Plus...it increases the healty competition for places.

Sometimes, specially during PASSARELLA´s tenure, I felt the players that regularely played in the starting lineup were lucking that desire, that will that will come if they are not sure of keeping their spot in the lineup.

Now I think very few players will feel they have their spot secured forever and that is only a positive thing to avoid an excess of confidence or a relaxation.

Anonymous said...

Seba,

I’ll do my very best keep this blog updated on the latest happening when the Roller Hockey World Championship (or any other event that our teams is involved) when its gets underway in June. I do have some other links that could be useful but might required your help to translate them as there are all in Spanish.

Lucy, I did commented on the issue on National Team conducting centralized training back in October last year. One of the team that I’ve mentioned was Greece. If it can be a success story for them, then why not for us?

However I’m not sure how does this going to work in the long run as please take note that the majority of the players in that list are unlikely to be featuring when the World Cup qualifying round takes place.

I’ll be surprise if COCO plans to omit the likes of MAXI, MILITO, HEINZE, GAGO, HIGUAIN or MASCHERANO and being replaced by players from the list.

John
Malaysia

johnny said...

As reards Martin Palermo, except for his "bomb" goal the other day, he has not looked very good so far this season. Maybe he will now break out of his funk. He has looked slow and lethargic. The rumor has been that an old feud between he and Russo might be the reason. Who knows.

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