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Diego needs Hand of God

Quazi Zulquarnain Islam
A staggering 64% of Argentineans believe that the Albiceleste will not be making it to South Africa next year, says a poll with nearly 80, 000 respondents, carried out by respected newspaper Clarin.
But then again, the Latin Americans always tend to exaggerate.
Barring an absolute disaster i.e, of greater proportions than the current predicament, Argentina will get a result out of at least one of their remaining two games. The worst-case scenario would then be a play-off against either Honduras or Costa Rica. If they cannot negotiate that, it will probably be for the best that they are not i n South Africa.
That is the good news.
However, the greater concern for the football-crazy nation will be the fate of football deity Diego Armando Maradona. Possibly the greatest football player to have played the game, Maradona's coaching (in) ability has seen the Argentines plumb to depths anew giving life to the age old cliche a
great player does not necessarily make a great manager.
As a player Maradona's greatest strength was his unpredictability; the ability to pull the unthinkable out of the bag. His game changing moments live with people to this day but what many critically forget is that for Maradona to wreak havoc like he did, there needed to be a structure and a framework in place. For Diego, that never mattered. He went out and did what he did best, play football. The rest was always taken care of.
The belief lurking in the minds of geniuses like Maradona is that the game is principally a matter of the instinctive application of instinctive skills. In truth, it is about hard graft and preparation and hard decisions as well as talent and fantasy.
And therein lies Maradona's weakness the inability to realize that tactics and functionality are the key segments of a winning team, not instinctive brilliance.
The latter he has in plenty. The Argentines boast possibly the best talent
in the world. Lionel Messi, Kun Aguero, Javier Zanetti and Javier Mascherano would walk into most teams in the world.
But football is not about the best personnel. It is about the right ones. And Maradona's inability has been to determine the right ones. Whether its sticking to players like Juan Veron who are well past their sell-by dates, or refusing to call up the prodigiously talented Gonzalo Higuain and the equally important grafter Esteban Cambiasso, Maradona's decisions have been as unpredictable and mind-boggling as his skills on the pitch.
For an example of what a good manager can do, just look at England. As one columnist puts it, its not that Fabio Capello has the Midas touch. There's no magic or mystery to his brilliance. His genius is in his competence. He knows how to organise a team. It's a basic concept, but there's nothing more effective than the right game plan being executed perfectly by committed players.
Diego needs
FROM PAGE 17
Which is more than can be said of Diego. He has called up 62 players in his short tenure, and given continuity to none. Ahead of their two biggest qualifiers he called up 29 players, many for the first time. This creates uncertainty within the squad and is a rookie mistake to avoid.
ft would be all well and good to blame Maradona for this demise. But Diego hasn't turned a good situation bad, just a bad situation worse; Alfio Basile only resigned after a shocking series of results.
Julio Grondona, the man at the helm of the Argentine Football Association (AFA) should share at least part of the blame. The romantic notion of the Maradona and Carlos Bilardo combination resurrecting like they did some twenty-four years ago, is the kind of fantasy that sits well in children's storybooks. Reality is more like Brazil where Dunga's pragmatic approach has won less admirers but more games.
Football has moved on, and Maradona and the AFA needs to as well.
Worryingly. Grondona has never sacked a manager in his 30 years as the head of the AFA So expect 35 million Argentines to be heartbroken come next summer. And along with them some scores of others across the world.