A boy became a man...by Pablo D.

Back in action and the first thing I want to do after securing our tickets for Argentina-Chile is spice up a little bit the build up for the match and pay my debt with a regular reader of Mundo Albiceleste.

Last month, in preparation for the World Cup Qualifiers, Argentina went to Melbourne to play Australia. I was in France at the moment and I couldn't even watch the match. I was unable to keep my posts in this blog coming and John did a great job in updating it.

But now, because it's never too late, I would like to publish this report from one of our readers.

Pablo lives in New Zealand and he never had the chance to see Argentina playing live at the stadium. He took his chance and, just like Roy did when he went to watch Argentina v North Korea in the latest U20 World Cup in Canada, Pablo became our correspondent for a day.

Here's Pablo's story of that day and some pictures to go with it!

Muchas gracias Pablo!

Today a boy became a man...

There are many defining moments in a boy's life to push him closer to the so called manhood.

The first time you have to shave, the first kiss, the first time "it happens" and today I really became a man.

I finally saw my beloved country play, score and win...live!

Living in New Zealand there's no chance to see Argentina play and when the game against Australia in Melbourne was announced, it was a done deal I was on my way. It's only about 3 hours away from where I live.

The trip over was most uneventful. I did wear my shirt and scarve in anticipation of the upcoming event.

Game day was a little cold with rain. Kick-0ff was Aussie 7.30 PM so we left at 5. The good news was their were a lot of blue and white everywhere. It was beautiful! The drums, the noise and the very colourful and always happy Argentine supporters. Even my German friends had to bow in honour of the support and yes, they even held up the scarve and chanted "Vamos Vamos Argentina!".

We were seated beside the Argentine supporters, sadly I was unable to get tickets in their section. The noise, flag waving and chanting was simple beautiful and on the big screen they showed the greatest goals of the past. As expected, "The Hand of God" brought the laudest roar from the crowd. The game was good and bad. The good was the section all of us were is behind the goal and this end was were the game was for the first half. But in the second half we were a long way from the other end. There were 70,000 in the M.C.G. A lot of action and a fair score would have been 3-1 to us.

Overall a very good but not brilliant performance. MESSI was amazing. His footwork, speed and control were just incredible. TEVEZ looked very off and we really do missed CRESPO a lot. In fact it is a real problem that there were no real tall hitman-type striker. If we dont find one soon we will have problems. We do a lot of good work to get the ball in the middle but there is no one to finish it off...where are they???

TEVEZ is better just in behind the front 2 not up the front. Because big tall defenders win the ball way to easily whereas if he has space to run at them he can turn quickly and shoot. Defence looked very solid. I was impressed with our defending and i thought HEINZE was very impressive. The midfield was also solid although lacked a little imagination and down the wings were slow apart from the Atomic Flea (MESSI) who was everywhere.

There are no words to say how amazing it felt being part of a dream for me and I'm sure every Argentine and every Argentina supporter who has not been to a live game will understand how I felt watching the blue and white live for the first time. I really hope it happens again soon for me maybe 2010 in South Africa.

Just to cap of an incredible time while I was in the airport after customs some members of the team were also leaving and I got to talk and shake hands with some of them. I can rest a very happy man now.....

Pablo.d