Friday, January 18, 2008

Checho wants Roman, Masche and Micho

A couple of days after his appointment to manage the Olympic team was made public, Sergio BATISTA decided to let everyone know what his choice of 3 over-aged players will be for Beijing 2008.

His first choice, Juan Roman RIQUELME, was revealed earlier this week. The Boca Juniors play-maker has already said that playing in the Olympics is one of his dreams, so you can be sure he'll be wearing the coveted Number 10 albiceleste shirt.


But BATISTA (nicknamed CHECHO) didn't stop there. He has revealed that he would love to take Liverpool's Javier MASCHERANO and Bayern Munich's Martin "Micho" DEMICHELIS as the other two over-aged members of the squad.

That kills the mystery before it even started.

No farewell for Pupi ZANETTI, Pato ABBONDANZIERI, Juan Sebastián VERON or Hernán CRESPO. No chance for TEVEZ to repeat the historic performance he showed in Athens, 4 years ago.

He'll wisely pick the back-bone of the senior national team by bringing on-form DEMICHELIS to play in the centre of the defense, road-runner MASCHERANO to chase every opposing "enganche" in the heart of the field and play-maker RIQUELME to tear rival defenses apart with his through passes and fierce long-range shots.

BATISTA knows he won't be short of talent to surround these three players and he's got plenty of options in almost every position.

BATISTA has 3 choices written in stone. He now needs to pick the other 15 players that will formed the squad and (according to what he said in a TV interview) those players need to be born in 1985 or after (now I'm not sure of the exact day of 1985 that will set the limit).

He's mentioned the names of MESSI, AGÜERO, BANEGA, GAGO and HIGUAIN, but we'll see who are the chosen ones in the end. One thing is for sure, BATISTA has a great array of talented players already established in Europe or in the domestic league at his disposal.

He has what manager say: "A beautiful problem" in having to pick just 15 players from a batch in which he can pick virtually any player from the last two Youth World Cup Champion squads (the 2005 and 2007 U20's). I'm guessing BATISTA is quite happy with his problems!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really want to see Di Maria in the line up. We will see Messi, Aguero... This might be the team we will have for the 2010 wc, a few sen players will also be in it as well. But i think all those players are going to be named on the list we will see most in the wc. If the Messi/Aguero works out then i think we will see more of that. If if if Batista does win the gold he might take over Basile spot. But I am pretty sure, Brasil will take Kaka Dino, maybe even Ronaldo.

JACK

John said...

I did kind of expect that from CHECHO on the over age players.

One for defence and two in midfield. Our strike force look to good that we ca do away with a CRESPO or CRUZ at the moment.

ROMAN I believe is a must considering the desire that he has shown.

The other midfield player that I would love to see is Ever BANEGA rather than Javier MASCHERANO. I would have preferred if we took Maxi RODRIGUEZ instead.

In defence Martin DEMICHELIS is perhaps a good choice.

While I do expect the likes of MESSI, KUN, DI MARIA, GAGO, HIGUAIN or just who knows ZARATE will make the trip.

Overall is a team that is strong as the one we had four years ago. The only thing that could be in our way from cliching another is either Brazil or some African team.