Saturday, June 27, 2009

Mundo's podcast - Is it Mundo Yellowgreen?




"Better late than never", goes the old saying.

Well...here you have it. Another edition of Mundo Albiceleste's podcast!

Some technical problems kept us from uploading it sooner, but the topics discussed in this latest conversation, are pretty much still fresh.

Without any matches for our beloved Argentina, we decided to pay a visit to our Brazilian friend Rafael, who gives us his views on his national team's fortunes at the Confederation Cups (we recorded this before Brazil defeated South Africa -very luckily, I might add- and I'm writing this before the final match between the yellow and green and the USA).

Brazil seem to be hitting form lately, and Rafael helps us examine our next WCQ rival from the inside.

John, Rafael and yours truly, took some time to recall our favourite (and our worst) memories from previous matches between Argentina and Brazil and we would love to hear from you.

If you want, you can simply click the audio player above or right-click on the following link and save it as an MP3 file or listen to it in your computer: download.

Enjoy! And don't forget to send us your views to argentina.correspondent@gmail.com or right here in the comments' box.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mundo verdeamarelo!
What's wrong with Brasil? They have "the same" problems we have once we get to the area: they don't know what to do with the ball! Sure USA defended with 13 players, but man, that's not what I call Brasil.

Also notice the efectiveness on both of USA goals. I assure you that, if one of our present forwards were to score in a similar situation, he wouldn't. They exchanged their efectiveness for that thing they call 'class' and I completely hate.

Nice to see news on the blog, no matter what team they're about.

p2bn said...

Anybody thinking Brazil are shaky as seen from two matches. I for one think, they are in fact getting very very good. The thing about Brazilians which I have come to respect is their ability to never give up and come from behind. I hate to say this but no other team seems to have that capability of always pulling it in the end. Especially Argentina has never been able to do that in Major tournaments from the time I have been seeing them while Brazil just does it again and again and again.

If some team scored 2 goal against Brazil, I for one loose almost all hope because we just seem to never be able to do it. I hope they prove me wrong but just hope it is at the time being.

Yes U.S. were very very stupid in second half. It was beyond belief they thought they would win by letting Brazil have 100% possession and letting them attack. I am already trembling with our such defense, what will happen to us?

Finally another point in which I might be dead wrong. In Argentina, its about proving every player is Diego, yet I don't hear so much new Pele as new Diego. Yes whole Brazilian team is filled with star players but they should to do awesome as a team yet we always seem to have problems. As I told I might be dead wrong because of reading mostly news about Argentina.

But I have to say, Well Done Brazil. Never thought I would say it but from the second half, they just deserved it by the way they played. I hope we can get better by September. If we loose 3-0 with Brazil, I want to know if Diego should still remain. :-D

Vamos Argentina

Anonymous said...

p2bn: you shouldn't be so scared about Brasil. Remember... if we were gonna lose 3-0, they wouldn't be excited about the match either. A classic is a classic, relax. We'll do "our thing".

Unknown said...

The Brazilian guy is wrong about Ecuador. We've always played our home games at altitude. We didn't all of a sudden have the breain storm and suddenly force everyone to play at altitude, and thus miraculously qualified for the world cup as a result of that.

We've improved as a team becuase our scouting has changed funamentally and becuase of our increased number of international games.

My biggest pet peeve in the world is when other teams just chalk our success up to altitude. That's BS! Rubbish!

The rest of the podcast was very enjoyable.

Sebastian said...

Hola Paulina.

Thanks for your words about our podcast.

One thing, though, regarding what you said about Rafael's comments on Ecuador, the altitude and their past playing World Cup Qualifiers in Guayaquil instead of Quito.

Rafael was right in saying Ecuador used to play their home matches at sea-level (or at least not in the altitude).

Here's a link that will show you Argentina played in Guayaquil in 1960 for the WCQ 1962 (winning 6-3).

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/statisticsandrecords/headtohead/team1=arg/team2=ecu/code=520/index.html

Ecuador also played Brazil at Guayaquil (for the WCQ of 1994), and surprisingly the result was 0-0.

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/statisticsandrecords/headtohead/team1=bra/team2=ecu/code=520/index.html

Here's the head-to-head between Ecuador and Uruguay in WCQ matches (a longer history between those two given the fact that Argentina and Brazil didn't have to qualify for a number of tournaments as they were qualified on virtue of being the host nation or the defending champions).

Nota that Ecuador and Uruguay have played twice at Guayaquil and 5 times in Quito.

Uruguay won 2 out of 2 in Guayaquil, but only 2 of 5 in Quito.

http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/statisticsandrecords/headtohead/team1=ecu/team2=uru/code=520/index.html

To give Rafael some more credit, he did mention that Ecuador went to the World Cup and advance from the first round and defeated a team like Poland in the process.

I believe not everything is down to the altitude, but a combination of the altitude and the incredible improvement your national team had over the years. To take a look at your starting lineup is to see there are a lot of your players shining in Europe and that's something that didn't happen in the past.

You can't deny, though, that Ecuador made it to the 2002 WC mostly because of their home form in the WCQ.

6 wins, 2 draws and only 1 loss (ironically to Argentina) in that qualifying campaign for 2002). Only 3 wins, 2 draws and 4 defeats away from Quito.

In 2006: 7 wins, 2 draws and no defeats in Quito.

Only one win away, with 2 draws and 6 defeats.

This time around, four of your five wins in WCQ were in Quito.

Unknown said...

Well gosh - I should have done my research. Where do you get all those stats, anyway? (I'm thinking about writing about this)

I'm just at a hairtrigger when it comes to defending my country, becuase i always get the sense that people dismiss us becuase we happen to live at the top of a mountain. Brazilians are especially prone to complaining about altitude! (But i guess they have a point with Ecuador, since they did beat us 5-0 at home)

I look at the US, and I wish that Ecuador could play with their (our) confidence. Hopefully my country will keep improving.

Anyway-- this blog is about Argentina. I think that Arg can def. beat Brazil. They did show some weaknesses today, and if Arg gets up early against them, they would def. be more adept to holding the lead than the US.

I'm actually pretty confident that Arg. can beat Brazil now.

Anonymous said...

Sebastian I have noticed something that is in a lot of us Argentines when we face Brasil in this generation of players. We hope for the best but fear for the worse. I hate that feeling, it is always on pins and needles.

Unknown said...

I think that that has always been the way for Arg. (and honestly, for Brazil as well - they always worry when they play Arg.)