What is happening to Argentina futebol makes me very sad.  I was born and raised in the good old USA. My wife is Brasilian. I have a Brasileiros heart.

I have a fondness for Argentina futebol. I remember Maradona’s Hand of God goal. I remember when Maradona raced up the pitch and dribbled through the entire English team. He made the English side look stupid. Goal. Baby this was all she wrote.

Futebol has always been a part of my life. I was first introduced to the game in the fourth grade. Mr. Maloof taught us how to play the game.

Back in the early 1960’s, futebol was not real big in the USA. Yet Mr. Maloof took the time teach is the game. We had a blast.

So, what does this have to do with the price of tea in China? I will show you.

I played fullback. It was really cool. I got to work on those two on one  situation. I became very good at defending. I loved it.

In my heart I wanted to be a football hero yet I played futebol. Soccer is what we call it in this country.

My heart yearned to be a football hero. When I entered high school, I gave up playing futebol to play football. In retrospect, this was a mistake. But hey, I was young and stupid. Now I am old and dumb. Go figure. Please tell me something I don’t know.

Futebol players didn’t get the girls football players did.

In Argentina, Brasil, and England it was just the opposite

I used to have this old short wave radio. I used to stay up all night listening to the BBC broadcast the 1966 World Cup.

I was hooked.

Pele made huge impression on me too. I heard stories about he how scored three goals in the 1956 World Cup semifinals.  This is now called a hat trick.

I read that Pele followed up that feat with two more goals in the 1956 World Cup finals.

One of my dear friends Julio is from Argentina. We meet in 1999. We had futebol in common. Julio is from Buenos Aires. He is a die-hard Boca fan. We spent hours talking about futebol.

Julio taught me about the great history of the AFA in particular the bitter rivalry between Boca and River Plate.

Julio lives and dies with his beloved Boca Juniors. Julio would brag about how great Boca was. He spoke in reverent terms about Basile and Tevez, Martin Palermo, Riquelme, Bianchi, Battaglia, Juan Carlos Lorenzo.

These two clubs have won well over ninety domestic and international titles between them. 

For the past few years, both of these storied clubs have been stinking the joint out. River and Boca have been falling faster than s snowball dropped from the top of the Empire State Building.

This Year River and Boca were unceremoniously dumped from the Copa Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana.

Both teams are languishing mid to lower table in the Apertura.

On Sunday, both Boca and River squared off in the Super Clássico. However this years Super Clássico wasn’t so super.

River and Boca are down right horrible. They both stink. The Super Clássico ended in a kiss your sister one all draw. Boring, but this the fate of both Boca and River.

Boca’s and River Plates slide into the abyss correlates to AFA near fatal miss of the 2010 World Cup.

Since mid 2007 the Argentina national team has been just going through the motions. This is why Basile quit. Enter Maradona and disaster follows. Blowouts. Crazy losses and stupid ties plagued Argentina up and down South America.

It all came down to one match for mighty Argentina. Win and you are in. Lose and go home. A last second goal by Palermo saved Maradona’s butt.

To fix Argentina’s problems is very simple. Fire both Grondona and Maradona. Get a coach who has a proven track record. Get the politics out of futebol and let the coach the team.

www.palau.org

http://www2.hillsong.com/tv/home.asp

http://www.bolaradio.com.br/

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