Preliminary squad for the Copa:
GK: Sergio Romero (AZ Alkmaar), Mariano Andujar (Catania), Juan Pablo Carrizo (River Plate)
DF: Javier Zanetti (Inter Milan), Pablo Zabaleta (Manchester City), Nicolas Burdisso (AS Roma), Nicolas Pareja, Marcos Rojo (both Spartak Moscow), Gabriel Milito (Barcelona), Ezequiel Garay (Real Madrid), Luciano Monzon (Boca Juniors)
MF: Javier Mascherano (Barcelona), Esteban Cambiasso (Inter Milan), Ever Banega (Valencia), Fernando Gago, Angel Di Maria (both Real Madrid), Javier Pastore (Palermo), Diego Valeri (Lanus), Lucas Biglia (Anderlecht), Enzo Perez (Estudiantes)
FW: Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Gonzalo Higuain (Real Madrid), Carlos Tevez (Manchester City), Diego Milito (Inter Milan), Sergio Aguero (Atletico Madrid), Ezequiel Lavezzi (Napoli)
My own selection:
GK: Juan Pablo Carrizo, Sergio Romero &
Agustin Marchesin.
DF: Javier Zanetti, Pablo Zabaleta,
Cristian Ansaldi, Ezequiel Garay, Marcos Rojo, Nicolás Pareja,
Ezequiel Munoz & Nicolás Burdisso.
MF: Enzo Pérez, Javier Mascherano, Lucas Biglia, Javier Pastore, Claudio Yacob, Ever Banega, Esteban Cambiasso, Angel Di María &
Ricardo Alvarez.
FW: Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez, Gonzalo Higuaín, Ezequiel Lavezzi,
Pablo Osvaldo & Sergio Agüero.
Which selection do you think is more balanced and reflective of form ? Disappointed not to see Yacob as cover at defensive midfielder and Munoz left out too. Batista's selections are mystifying.Take Biglia who is nursing a shoulder injury.
Valeri over Alvarez ? Diego Milito over Osvaldo or even an aerial threat like Stracqualursi at Boca and picking several players who have barely played this season and picking a disaster in Gabriel Milito in defence who is finished as a defender after his injuries not that he was much god before it.
Batista is also showing he can be pushed around.The best leaders to paraphrase Sun Tzu must show a degree of intelligence, a degree of credibility in terms of trust and competence. A small mixture of humanity in dealing with those under your command and some courage to make tough decisions and finally discipline.
He lacks all of these qualities. This is not to say there is a dearth of qualified coaches.
Sabella outperformed Ferguson when he took his Estudiantes side ever so close against Barcelona. Pochettino has done well at Espanyol and Luis Zubeldia nephew of the great Osvaldo whose Estudiantes team beat Manchester United in 1968 who are all cogniscent of modern coaching technologies with Luis being just 30 odd years of age.
Now there appears to be a falling out between Batista and the mafioso over including Tevez. Grondona dislikes Tevez and no doubt his alliance with Maradona who has been attacking the mafioso in the Argentine press with allegations that the Don doped the team before their WC playoff match against Australia in the cafe veloz affair.
The Don hit back alleging he had to in order to cover up Diego's coke habit.
It's all rather grubby and sordid and with the AFA controlling the TV monies for the clubs most of the club presidents have lined up behind the mafioso.
On the pitch the domestic squad beat Paraguay 4-2 with impressive displays from Napoli bound defender and youngster Federico Fernandez and Enzo Perez. Coco Lamela made his first team debut as such and after a shaky start displayed a nice passing range and almost scored.
YouTube - Argentina vs Paraguay 4-2 (Friendly) - All Goals & Highlights - 25/05/2011
The u25 squad which still inc.Zabaleta lost 4-1 to Nigeria:
YouTube - Nigeria vs Argentina 4-1 - All Goals - Full Highlights - 01-06-2011 - Nigeria 4-1 Argentina
It was an appalling display by players who seemed to lack motivation as many knew they had no chance to make the Copa squad or like Garay and Zabby were trying to avoid injury as they had been picked.
Nonetheless this is a special jersey and the effort shown was extremely poor. The players should have been showing a determination to press their claims to being seleccion material ie Fazio. Only Tino Costa really showed much displaying his skills at set pieces.
Batista's madness in pursuing a high defensive line when the players lack pace was also revealing. Simple longballs over the top caused no end of problems. In his ineptitude I sincerely hope he decides not to play Masche at CB. Barca can keep the ball but with his idea of 3 DMs keeping the ball is more problematic and Masche has not been up against a top class tall striker either.
If he did play Pastore with Banega this would solve the posession problem and ensure Messi would not have to be scorer and creator not to mention eliminate the gaps between defence/midfield and forwards which are noticeable.
Argentina were playing the tiki taka a long time before 2010 and peaked with it 2005-7 with the team playing as a cohesive unit in defence and attack and dominating posession in the process.
Batista's idea is to give the little flea the ball and hope something happens. He seems not to realize there are several players not far off Messi in terms of ability to create and score as well and that it is a team game and getting them to lift their game rather than passing to Messi all the time.
Or even use Messi as a decoy to create space for others on the pitch. Even when crowded players seem to wish to pass to himwhen others are free. And others like di Maria who plays more collectively in Real seem to be more selfish with the seleccion.
He is not getting the team to perform to their potential at all. He has multiple threats ie Kun , di Maria and does not utilize them or lacks the awareness to make tactical subsitutions at the right time when the opposition might be tiring to throw on someone like Kun or Tevez or alter the shape of the midfield.
He has got just one thing right in getting the fullbacks to push up the pitch attacking wise but then any one could have seen that.
Set pieces are still a shambles defensively and in terms of attacking potential. Roman is sorely missed at these yet he omits Tino Costa who might help with this or even Tevez.
Coming back to the Nigeria match ,Argentina's penalty after Nigerias extremely dubious penalty was also a farce being awarded for a non existent handball EIGHT minutes into injury time. As a result the match is being investigated for being fixed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ernational-between-Nigeria-and-Argentina.html
What a world football is. Fancy FIFA investigating corruption within the game....
Batista is a fraud but until the mafioso is removed from the AFA to which he has clung to obdurately for night on four decades no decent coach wants to accept the position because of all the interference involved.
It's amazing and simultaneously galling with all the talent available and the best player in the world and more talent in the pipeline that there has been such a lack of sucess in international competition recently.
If the team wins the Copa bearing in mind the abilities of Brazil, Uruguay and Chile it will be down to the players rather than the coach.
There are plenty of transfer rumours .Kun to Real seems a possibility which might mean Higuain moving on amazingly. Messi would like to have Pastore at Barca but the price is a sticking point.
Banega to Internazionale is another firm possibility alongside Tevez to keep the Inter tradition of Argentines at the club. Lamela is being linked to their city rivals AC and Roma and Biglia with free spending Malaga who made a bid for Pastore.
Iturbe has signed with Porto, Piatti is also likely to move to Atletico and Ansaldi may well end up at Marseille and at last migh remind Batista he is still alive.......
All this transfer activity is rather disturbing to players prior to the Copa and hopefully any deals will be concluded before it.
@ Carrizo!
This time round Russia should benefit and hopefully Portugual will be here in 2015. 
and the beaches are full of kids playing rugby (not playing exactly but they do the moves if you understand what I mean).
on the other side I do like Boca 
could have seen Argentina into the semi-finals there.
