footballspectator

Is Carlitos Tevez on his way out of Corinthians? Following Sunday’s 1-0 victory over Botafogo in the Brasileirao, Tevez failed to turn up to training on Monday without providing Corinthians’ management with any indication of his whereabouts. In the wake of Sunday’s match, Tevez hinted that that may have been his farewell match for Timao.

Undoubtedly Corinthians’ best player of the past two seasons, Tevez has enjoyed an unhappy spell this term and has been targeted by the Sao Paulo clubs notoriously fickle fans for the team’s poor form so far which finds them in the relegation zone. After being booed throughout a recent match, he irked fans yet further by putting his finger to his lips in a “silence” gesture after scoring. This prompted some fans to threaten to beat him up unless he apologised. More recently he was involved in a training ground bust-up with team-mate Carlos Alberto. Despite the troubles, Tevez has still managed to improve on his goals to games ratio from last year with 15 goals in 23 games.
If Tevez leaves where will he go? The latest rumours say Milan who are in need of a forward following the sale of Sheva to Chelsea. But don’t rule out Bayern or Manchester United

Manchester United are apparently interested in 6 Juventus players: Gianluigi Buffon, Gianluca Zambrotta, Patrick Vieira, Fabio Cannavaro, Emerson and Lilian Thuram. Alex Ferguson said, “We were waiting to see what the situation with Juventus was. Now we know in which direction to go in terms of inquiries and, possibly, definitive offers for one or two players“.

However, according to AS, Ferguson may be too late for at least three of these. Real Madrid’s Sporting Director Predrag Mijatovic is in Turin to finalise the signings of Cannavaro, Emerson and Zambrotta. He will meet with Juve officials tomorrow to negotiate the final price - Juve are asking for €40 million and Real’s current offer is €30 million for all three. Mijatovic may also pick up Cristiano Zanetti, a favourite of Capello. These players may be joined at Real by Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Kaka.
To add a further twist Zambrotta’s agent says that his client would rather stay in Italy with AC Milan his destination. He may be joined there by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who Carlo Ancelotti believes is the ideal partner for Alberto Gilardino.

Inter have had a €38 million bid for Fernando Torres rejected by Real Madrid. Torres is also wanted by Manchester United to replace the outgoing Van Nistelrooy. But new coach Javier Aguirre has insisted that Torres is not for sale. Marseille chairman Pape Diouf has issued similar statement regarding World Cup star Franck Ribery.

Javier Saviola’s agent has said that his client will either stay at Sevilla or move to Panathinaikos after Arsene Wenger declared yesterday that he was not interested in signing the player. Saviola spent last year on loan in Seville from Barcelona who are keen to offload the Argentine. Other players on the way are Jared Borgetti from Bolton to possibly Racing Santander and Liverpool duo Jan Kromkamp (a PSV target) and Djimi Traore who may go to Bolton or Charlton.

Finally tow players who completed moves today were Holland’s Denny Landzaat who joins Wigan from AZ Alkmaar and Croatian World Cup playmaker Niko Kranjcar who is moving to Celta Vigo from Hajduk Split.

Are Germany a better team than Argentina? No. So how did they manage to lose a game which was theirs for the taking? Jose Pekerman, made mistake after mistake.

The first half was a tactical battle. Argentina dominated possession and Germany, conscious of their defensive weakness, got eleven men behind the ball. Things should have opened up in the second after Ayala’s header gave Argentina the lead on 48 minutes. However instead of going for the jugular, Pekerman decided to try to hold on to his lead. He took off his creative fulcrum Riquelme for Cambiasso. He then compounded his error by bringing on the immobile Julio Cruz, who has hardly featured in this tournament for Hernan Crespo.

Riquelme should have stayed on the pitch - his passes could have unpicked the German defence. Further, Saviola or Messi should have come on instead of Cruz - both are small and quick and would have tested the tiring German central defenders more. As a result Germany gained the initiative and Klose’s header 11 minutes from brought the scores level. With three minutes to go, Lahm brought down Maxi and Argentina should have had a penalty. Instead, referee Lubos Michel booked Maxi for diving and the game went into extra time.

With both teams looking tired, penalties looked inevitable and when they arrived there was little doubt that the Germans would come out on top. When Cambiasso’s penalty was saved by Lehmann to hand them a semi-final berth, they celebrated a little too much for the Argentineans liking and Leandro Cufre showed his annoyance by launching a karate kick at Per Mertesacker, prompting a small fight.

At the press conference following the match, Pekerman failed to acknowledge his mistakes during the game but did resign. Argentina should have gone further.

No doubt the Argentineans are a strong team. How many teams can bring the quality of Aimar, Tevez and Messi off the bench? However, if they do have one area of weakness it is at right back. Last night against Mexico Scaloni was frequently embarrassed by the Mexican wingers and Burdisso has not been convincing either. The irony is that Argentina could have called on one of the greatest players in this position over the last 10 years – Javier Zanetti. Instead, Pekerman chose to leave him at home, a decision he is probably regretting already.

So what of the game? Mexico probably produced their best performance of the tournament and pushed the Albiceleste all the way. The match got off to an electrifying start with Mexico’s captain and best player took advantage of an error by Gabriel Heinze to hit a half-volley past Abbondanzieri after just 4 minutes. Crespo soon had Argentina level. Riquelme’s cross casued havoc and Borgetti’s attempt at a header deflected of Crespo’s foot and past Oswaldo Sanchez. However, Argentina appeared nervous. The Mexican’s kept Riquelme tightly marked and stifled his creative influence, while looking dangerous on the counter-attack. Heinze was lucky to escape with just a yellow card following an atrocious error which almost let Fonseca in. True to the tradition of rugged Argentinean defending, he hacked Fonseca down.

In the second half Pekerman brought on Aimar, Tevez and Messi and they slowly began to turn the game. Their direct running caused the Mexican defenders many problems and Messi had a goal unfairly disallowed for offside in stoppage time.

In extra-time Argentina continued to attack in waves while Mexico seemed content to wait for penalties. With six minutes left of the first half, Sorin crossed, Maxi Rodriguez, on the edge of the area, controlled the ball on his chest and in one movement smashed a left-footed volley into Sanchez’s top right hand corner, to allow 38 million Argentineans to breathe a collective sigh of relief and leave the rest of us with the mouth-watering prospect of an Argentina v Germany quarterfinal to look forward to.

Here is Maxi’s goal for you all to enjoy

After the 3-2 at France ‘98, we were hoping to witness another clash between Holland and Argentina packed with goals. There were some clear cut chances during the game, especially on the Argentinean side, but in the end our hopes were not to fulfilled and it ended goalless. Messi, Tevez and co looked very impressive: they were all over the place, especially in the first 60 minutes, and had a number of chances to put their country in the lead. The Dutch had a tough time keeping Argies under control, although it must be said that the two Dutch central defenders coped extremely well with the pressure they were subjected to.

Argentina were hoping to finally beat Holland for the first time in 90 minutes: the only time they ever managed to defeat the Dutch was in the 1978 final, but they only did so after 30 minutes of extra time. It wasn’t meant to be this time, but we’re pretty sure that if the two should meet again in the final, Argentina will have no problem defeating them without having to resort to extra time.

They were excellent in their first match but yesterday Argentina’s performance was from a different world. Their 6-0 demolition of Serbia & Montenegro was the performance of the World Cup so far. They displayed a brand of flowing, attacking care free football that even start-studded Brazil will struggle to match. Serbia & Montenegro could not cope and they are not a bad side.

All six goals were excellent but the stand-out has to be the 24 pass move which culminated in Esteban Cambiasso’s great finish from Hernan Crespo’s backheel to score Argentina’s second. Earlier, Maxi Rodriguez had opened the score from a great pass from Saviola, and Saviola set Rodriguez up again for the third. Saviola’s performance was outstanding once again and it is hard to believe that he is surplus to requirements at Barcelona. There should be a queue forming for his services. The other scorers were Hernan Crespo and young duo Carlitos Tevez and Lio Messi who both made their World Cup debuts.

Argentina are playing as if they have something to prove following their disappointing exit in 2002 when they were favourites. While Pekerman was criticised in the Argentinean media for his substitutions in the first match, his decisions cannot be faulted in this game. Their performances need to be put into context - they are producing them in the TOUGHEST Group! If the albiceleste can keep it up, they should be lifting the title on July 9th.

Here are the goals. Please excuse the commentary!

Argentina prevailed 2-1 in last night’s Group of Death opener in Hamburg. First half goals from Hernan Crespo and Javier Saviola put the albiceleste in control, before Didier Drogba’s late strike breathed life into the match and made it a nervy last ten minutes.

The match was easily the best of the World Cup so far, with two high class teams playing open attacking football. Argentina should have taken the lead following Roberto Ayala’s powerful header which goalkeeper Tizie appeared to fumble across the line early in the first half, but the linesman failed to spot this and play continued. However, with Riquelme pulling the strings it was not long before they went ahead. First, Crespo bundled in his teasing cross and then Saviola ran on to his perfectly weighted slide-rule pass for a neat second. Keita should have pulled one back but his point-blank header from Drogba’s clever flick was straight at Abbondanzieri.

In the second half, Henri Michel made a series of attacking substitutions which almost paid off. In contrast Pekerman withdrew Riquelme and Saviola and Argentina began to sit back. Too often however, selfishness cost the Ivorians as Dindane in particular looked to go it alone rather than pass to a better placed team-mate. Their persistence paid off in the 82nd minute when Drogba converted Boka’s cross but their was no dream finish.
Argentina are the most impressive team we have seen so far. With players like Messi and Tevez still to feature, their squad has a lot of depth, more so than the likes of Germany and England. As for the Ivorians, their first appearance in a World Cup was excellent and the Dutch and the Serbs must be concerned. Based on performances to date , I would rank them second behind Argentina. It’s a shame that only two teams can qualify from this group.

Argentinean’s have their revenge for Guarana Antartica’s advert featuring Maradona in a Brazil shirt (see posting on 16 May). Mastercard have released an advert featuring Carlos Tevez, with the catch phrase “Knowing that the best player in Brazilian football is Argentinean - priceless”. We await the Brazilian response with anticipation..