Argentina’s Road To World Cup

The 2014 World Cup is coming soon, the countdown has begun in earnest with digital clocks round the city.
Manager Alejandro Sabella wants to unveil his final squad to Brazil in the next few days with a worry of Gonzalo Pipita Higuain’s recent injury, and a press fracas over the people’s player Carlos Tevez, the perennial abundance of Argentina’s frontmen dominates the agenda.
Tevez, 30-year-old, has enjoyed a superlative season with Juventus but he has never been part of Sabella’s national project. A fact that has become a bone of contention generating minor demonstrations and widespread emotional outbursts in some circles.
Messi, 26-year-old, is still a bit of an unknown quantity for his country, despite earning some 83caps.not a natural leader, his boy-next-door demeanor and by now renowned economy of words hide the power behind his name. Whether he overtly executes his influence or simply by osmosis makes whoever happens to be the manager try out the system in which he appears more comfortable, the fact is he has become the centre of expectation.
For years the national outcry was why he didn’t deliver with the nation as he did with Barcelona. Now Barcelona is no longer deemed an adequate model to aspire to, there is complacency at the ease with which the nation qualified.
This could be a mistake. The smoothest ride to a World Cup finals the country has known, under the leadership of Marcelo Bielsa in 2002, saw one of the quickest exits in memory with Argentina failing to get past the group stage.
All approaches tried, but failed. Nothing has worked beyond activating the emotional responses and angering or delighting spectators. Perhaps it is time to stop focusing so much expectation on individuals: whether Tevez and Messi can coexist as number 10s is less serious than whether a country so geared to raising little boys for international sale can start to develop some defenders as well as attacking midfielders.
This summer if Messi fails to deliver the actual World Cup back to the football Association, profound structural changes within the establishment. We are hoping new blood in to this old beast. That might be a way out.