BRISK, lively starts featured in both Group B matches yesterday. South Korea needed only seven minutes to take the lead against Greece on the coast yesterday, while up near the centre of Johannesburg, Argentina required one minute less to establish their advantage over Nigeria. It’s as if the players, having stood to attention for their anthems, begin by the end of the last verse to sense the genuine chill of a southern hemisphere winter and need to get moving.
It is weather to jump-start good football. It is an antidote to the anticipated fatigue that comes with long summer tournaments.
These were nice conditions for an entertaining game. South Africa’s greatest city presented a clear sky, though by four o’clock the pitch at Ellis Park was in shadow. Half the Nigerian team chose long sleeves over short. All but one of the Argentinians, Gabriel Heinze, preferred to show off the tattoos on their forearms. Their manager, meanwhile, was dressed to kill, glittering earrings, distinguished, greying beard and a smart suit.
Diego Maradona looked delighted with the start his team made — hugs and kisses for his companions on the bench — and that it was two favourite lieutenants who engineered and scored what turned out to be the winning goal. Juan Sebastian Veron’s corner picked out Heinze when the throng of likelier targets were closer to goal.
Heinze and Veron count as veterans, the sort of men a more Cartesian, scientific manager might be more inclined to take on a five-week expedition if he thinks the weather won’t sap their energies too much. Maradona, though, would take this pair across the Sahara wearing chainmail anoraks. As head coach he has become their champion and defender against criticism that both are too far beyond their best to be trustworthy prefects for a squad whose absentees — Inter Milan’s Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso, for instance — had been noted with confusion.
Other coaches have discarded Heinze and Veron. Several times. Alex Ferguson said farewell to Heinze three summers ago and spent few sleepless nights since regretting the departure. Real Madrid waved him off after symptoms of declining pace had become a regular occurrence. In the 11 months since, Heinze has won a French league title with Marseilles, but is the second-best left-back at that club, behind Nigeria’s Taye Taiwo. Yet Maradona’s regard for Heinze, who is in his 33rd year, goes beyond his athletic abilities. Sceptics wonder if friendship and the sharing of a commercial representative provides partial explanation. Maradona says he likes the defender’s spirit.
He sees Veron, now 35, in a similar way. He is the same Veron whom Ferguson sold to Chelsea seven summers ago, whom Chelsea let go to Italy in 2007 and whom Inter allowed to return to Argentina a year later. There his career has soared again, albeit in a football played at a gentler speed, if not with kinder tackles. Veron started well against Nigeria, not just for his part in the goal but with some crisp, measured passes. He did tire a little, hence his departure around 15 minutes from the end.
The Argentinian whose comeback story outshouts either Heinze’s or Veron’s was as reflective after the victory as he had been visibly animated on the touchline. Maradona, sometimes accused of being as suspicious of Lionel Messi as he is trusting of Heinze and Veron, praised his most brilliant performer of the day. “Football is much more beautiful when Messi has a lot of the ball,” he said. Had it worried him that, for all their many chances, his side had scored just the once?
“It happens in football, sometimes you work hard on your finishing and you keep hitting the post. We worried a bit that we might concede an equaliser but the result puts on the right road.”
It had been an emotional day, said Maradona, involved at a World Cup for the first time since playing a 1994 group game against Nigeria, after which he was charged with a doping offence.
“In 2006 I was with Argentina as a fan,” he said. “Today, I spent some of the morning with my grandchild and then I was on the field again as a coach. It was a great feeling and I’m pleased we got a result to make our people happy. But you can’t dwell on it. There is a long way still to go, so many decisions to make, and the World Cup moves on at Formula One speed.”
Not too fast, he hopes, for his veterans to bear.
0 comments:
Post a Comment