Chapter Seventy-Five: Basilai
Boca Juniors, who have won all four rounds, lead the league standings with absolute goals, while their old rivals River Plate have suffered a bad situation with one win, two draws and one defeat.
At this time, Santiago, like many of his teammates competing in the Olympics, took advantage of the league break to go to the Argentine national team's training ground five days in advance to report.
The Monumental Stadium, the home of the Argentine national team, is also the home of River Plate, and in order not to affect the normal preparation of River Plate during the league period, a short training camp before the qualifiers was put on the home field of the national Olympic team. After all, the facilities here are quite complete, and Buenos Aires is also a core capital city, with easy transportation links for players to and from the game.
Argentina is one of the most successful national teams in the world, having won 19 major national tournaments, including two World Cups, 14 Copa America and two Olympic men's gold medals, as well as a Confederations Cup.
In the most recent World Cup, the 06 World Cup in Germany, Argentina was placed in the group of death, along with Ivory Coast, Serbia and Montenegro, and the Netherlands. Argentina won their first game against Ivory Coast, then beat Serbia and Montenegro 6-0 before being held to a 0-0 draw by the Netherlands in the final group game to break through the Group of Death unbeaten. Entering the knockout stage, Argentina's first opponent was Mexico, the toughest opponent Argentina has faced since the start, the two teams drew 1-1 in the 90-minute game, went into extra time, and Rodriguez's magical goal in the last minute helped Argentina to victory.
Entering the quarter-finals, Argentina welcomed the host German team, and after extra time, the game still drew 1-1, and the game went to a penalty shootout, but this time the magical performance came from the German goalkeeper Lehmann, whose save sent the German team to the semi-finals, and the Argentine team stopped.
It is worth mentioning that such a seemingly unsatisfactory result is actually the best result of the Argentine national team in the last few World Cups, so despite the criticism of Argentina's sluggish firepower against strong teams, coach Pekerman still stepped down in a relatively relaxed public opinion environment.
Pekerman has won three World Junior Championships with the team – Qatar 1995, the Malay Islands 1997 and Argentina 2001 – and was in good form in the 2005 Confederations Cup, leading them to the final, where they were beaten 4-1 by Brazil.
However, when Pekerman left, the heavy responsibility fell to the current coach Basile, the young talents of Argentine football are always enviable, but how to lead them to good results is a headache for all coaches who coach it, and it is natural for Basille to understand it.
Basile was a strong centre-back who played for Atlético Argentina and was instrumental in winning the 1966 Argentine Primera Championship and the 1967 Copa Libertadores and Club World Cup titles. After retiring as a player, Basile was the head coach of Argentina from 1991 to 1994, where he led the team to back-to-back Copa America titles in 1991 and 1993, with the country's most recent major triumph coming in the 1993 Copa America.
In September 1993, Basile's Argentina suffered a 5-0 defeat to Colombia in a World Cup qualifier, which forced them to participate in a play-off against Australia. In the face of doubts, Basilé re-invited Maradona to the mountain, and the morale-boosting Argentina team defeated Australia 2-1 in two legs to advance to the World Cup finals.
However, it is impossible for the king of the ball to continue his life for Basile, and after Argentina lost 2:3 to Romania in the 94 World Cup and was eliminated, Basile could only resign as head coach subsequently.
In the following time, Basile moved into Boca Juniors after a while, and also produced convincing results, which happened to be the departure of Pekerman at this time, so the Argentine Football Federation once again set its sights on Basile. "As an Argentine, I am proud to be in charge of the national team again. ”
However, although Macri, then president of Boca Juniors, told local media that he had agreed to let Basile leave, the decision was made after a lengthy meeting with the Argentine Football Federation. The Argentine Football Federation had sent an invitation to Basile two weeks earlier, but Boca Juniors did not want Basile to leave too soon because a new coach had not been decided.
In the end, the brilliance of the Argentine coach has an important relationship with Basile himself. During the two weeks that he led Boca to a friendly match in Mexico, he spoke to the media on several occasions and imagined the future as a national team coach.
Macri is very embarrassed by his own coach's thoughts, everyone wants to leave and forcibly keep him, is it necessary to break hands with the Argentine Football Association? Coupled with the fact that he also had the idea of rushing into politics, Macri was able to let Basile go in the end.
But since then, the relationship between Boca and Basile has also taken a sharp turn, after all, the season has not yet started, it is said that the change of coach is like a change of knife, but you have done a good job and suddenly want to leave, what about the successor? What about the squad that you have built according to your tactical thinking? What about the players you promised to reuse?
All these urgent problems made Boca very annoyed, and they did not dare to attack in the face of a righteous cry in the country, but they were already enmity in their hearts.
Maradona was also embarrassed by this, he had a very good relationship with Basile, who came back to help him survive when he was in danger, and later recommended Basilé to replace Benitez, who had recently resigned due to the team's elimination in the quarterfinals of the Copa Libertadores.
Lao Ma has repeatedly taken the lead in wanting to be a peacemaker between Boca and Basilé, but everything is not so simple, and now Argentina has three wins, two draws and one loss in the first six rounds of the 2010 World Cup qualifiers, which is unsatisfactory. Seeing that his honeymoon period with the Argentine Football Federation is about to come to an end, some Boca executives will inevitably stand up and express their dissatisfaction with Basilé, so that the relationship between the two sides is not only not eased, but worsens.
Basille is indeed an enthusiastic head coach, but the most basic emotions are still the same as ordinary people, and the dissatisfaction with Boca is becoming more and more intense, and even the players in the Boca family have no good face.
Both sides are well aware of this, but few people can refuse the call-up of the national team, and Boca is also a strong local faction of the national team, so the two sides still maintain peace on the surface.
Therefore, in the report of entering the national team this time, neither Santilgo nor Monzon had the luxury of expecting to be able to play for the country, only Riquelme, who returned from vacation, showed an old god.
In the midfield of the national team, Riquelme is still a well-deserved core player, and the big brother who is the best choice in terms of qualifications and strength certainly does not care about the conflict between Boca and Basilé.
Sure enough, in this life-threatening game with the coaching career of the Basile national team, a group of newly selected players of the national Olympic team such as San Thiago failed to get the opportunity to play except for Di Maria, Basile did his best, Zanetti, Demichelis, Heinze, Mascherano, Cambiaso, Riquelme, Tevez and others all rushed to the game, and Basile himself was enthusiastic and resolute before the game.
But even so, the home team faced Paraguay, who was temporarily the first in the group, and after 90 minutes of fierce battle, Argentina, which was finally 10 players, still drew with the Paraguayan team 1:1. In the first half, Heinze's own goal put Argentina behind, and in the 30th minute of the game, Tevez was sent off for a malicious foul, and it was not until Aguero came off the bench in the second half to help Argentina equalize.
After this game, Argentina continued its embarrassing record of 35 years without a home win against Paraguay, and Basilé himself was on the verge of resignation.
After the game, he hurriedly shook hands with the Paraguayan coach and left the stadium, not even going back to the locker room, Tie Qing's face made the players speechless, not only Basile's personal future, but now Argentina's prospects of qualifying for the World Cup are gradually slimmer after another draw.