Players Of The Future?

Replace Icardi with Lanzini.

I was forming a side with players other than the current ones, besides the ones you listed DiMaria, Fernandez, Romero, Garay, Banega, Monzon, Lavezzi, even Gago, all could still be part of the team in terms of age.

 

Prandelli. Is Italian junior football in that bad a state ?

Hands off Dybala. Hope Trobbiani and Brown have contacted him already with an offer of a place for the summer u20 Cup.

 

First of all commiserations SM about the shocking debacle in Sao Paulo. More evidence that 2014 will be a nightmare for visiting fans in terms of travel and dealing with the so called police.

I spoke to Fernando albeit via a translator as I told you on our open day for fans. Lovely fellow with a perpetual grin on his face. He likes it here and is ready to sign a permanent contract and visits London to get his fill of Argentinian food. Asado , mollejha is it and other Argentine specialities at various restuarants.

He has rapidly become a man that is marked by the opposition. They are scared of him. He is a very good dribbler with a nice turn of pace and an eye for goal. He works hard as well and there are many times he has chased back to win the ball.

Unfortunately he still has plenty of deficiencies in his game which hopefully Zola will work on. Namely his tendency to dive all the time. Referees no longer give him any decisions because they are aware of it. Also when he has the ball he often fails to get his head up. He will be on a break or in space with players overlapping or going beyond him in a better position.

What does he do ? He instead ploughs on and tries to go through himself often losing the ball in the process. So incredibly talented but frustrating. Nonetheless he is a already one of the best players to have graced our pitch and a cult hero.

Battochio ? He has only had one full start and 2 appearances from the bench. So it has been very hard for him to build match fitness. Nonetheless given the poor passing in midfield recently from the England u20 international we have on loan from Chelsea I'd put him in.

He has shown some lovely passing ability both short and long but is also prone to trying to play the magic ball and losing posession.

Also he still dawdles when deep in defence on the ball and has been caught out. This is more down to getting used to the pace of football here. For his small size he is quite tough on the ball but still loses the ball a fair bit so needs to toughen up in that regard.

Defensively he is very tenacious. He does get stuck in tackles and covers well. Hopefully he gets a longer run of games.

After a slow start we are in the plyaoff positions and are confident we can earn promotion this season. You may get to see us in the FA Cup Third match as we are away at Manchester City.

 

I'm starting to worry about our future crop of players. When was the last time that AFA produced a young blue-chip large ($) transfer player? Aguero? It feels like eternity. The players that are playing for the U-20 team are disappointing as were all U-20 players in the past 5 years. I was fooled into getting excited about Iturbe, but now I am wondering why. Lamela shows sparks at Roma, but I think that it will take a herculean type effort for him to become the next Crespo.

I am really worried about the future of the NT. . . someone talk me down from the ledge.

 

Like SupaMario said, Lamela is not a 9, he has absolutely no similarities to Crespo.

As for the "AFA producing" I don't get how the AFA could produce any players. The clubs form the players, not the AFA.

And the main reason we haven't seen any huge money deals is due to impatience, incompetence, and corruption in the clubs. You see someone like Lucas Moura going from Sao Paulo to PSG for 40 million euros... I have no doubt the kid is a crack, but 40 million? I would take Lamela over him, but thats the point. Brazilian clubs have serious money so they can demand more.

No club would offer an argentine club 40 million euros for a player, when they could get him for 10 million euros. Lamela was sold for 14 million euros and he played on a team that went down, if he had been on a good side, he would have gone for at least double. The fault lies with DAP for selling him even before the sub 20 world cup when he was the best player.

Also Pastore was a real crack at Huracan, but he was sold for peanuts to Palermo and Huracan got nothing because they owned almost none of his rights. When he went from Palermo to PSG, it was serious money, though I can't remember how much

 

Absolutely right. The Brazilian FA is pumping money into the league with sponsor deals and are able to hang on to their big players and bring the European based ones back to their country. Pato being the latest one.

The Argentine clubs are trying to bring back some names. However past it the players might be, they still try but they have no money. Coloccini is the latest name that could be heading back home.

When a European club comes knocking for a player with transfers as low as 10 or even 5 million Euro's, the Argentine clubs have to accept, they need the money.

You have special cases, Pastore being one as he went from Palermo to PSG for (according to his wiki page) 39.8 million euro's.

 

I don't think high value necessarily indicates that a player is any good (although clearly it is beneficial to the selling club). I mean Andy Carrol is one of the most expensive players of all time but he's still rubbish.

As for the Brazillian who went to PSG, I read an interesting article (can't remember who it was by, might have been Tim Vickery) stating that his club would have been happy to have received 15 million euros for him but were staggered when PSG paid in the region 35 million euros.

I'm not that surprised that the current crop of young Argentinian players are somewhat lacklustre. No country can continously produce top quality players, rather, if you are lucky, you have a "golden generation" (as the French did when they won the '98 world cup and the Euros in 2000 and the Spanish do currently) and hope that those players win you a world cup/Copa or european championship.

In my view Argentina have that golden generation right now (although we could do with a few more defenders) with the likes of Messi/Aguero.Higuain/Di Marie etc, we just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope they win the big one in 2014 because it could be a long time until we have such a talented crop again.

England's golden generation did f**k all.

 

Don't get caught up in the semantics of the post, or the get hung up on what "big money transfer" means (i.e., doe high dollar value mean quality).

The point is that we had a really good run with Tevez-Mascherano-Messi-Kun-DiMaria-Higuain-Zabelata generation.

But there isn't an Argnetinean player currently under 20 years old that appears to have the potential to be a REAL Crack. Lamela is 20, and he is about as close as we can get.

But there is no talent pool in Argentina for U-20 right now. We had a stream of players come up starting in the mid 90's (w/ Zanetti, Sorin, Riquelme, Aimar, Ayala, Veron, Cambiasso etc) to-and ending just about 3-4 years ago (w/ the Messi-Kun-Higuain era).

When is the last time we produced that type of talented player? We can blame AFA for not investing $, but the truth is that there is a serious lack of talent U-20. And the NT will be in trouble in 7-8 years when the current crop of players begin to retire from NT duty.

 

There are highs and lows for every international team (even Brazil struggled for 2 decades until they won the '94 world cup), all you can hope is that when you do produce a crop of talented players that the NT is succesful. But I take your point, that after this generation the cupboard does look pretty bare.

 

If there was a golden generation, it was the group the came through around the early to mid 90s... They never won the world cup, but were certainly much better than the group argentina has now...

The only difference is Messi. We had no one at that level, but who has?

In the 90s the likes of Zanetti and Juampi Sorin... The laterals Argentina has now, wouldn't be fit to tie their boots TBH

IMO the 90s was the glory years of Argentine Football, not just in producing players, but in club football... The River of Ramon Diaz and Francescoli, Velez of Chilavert, Boca of Caniggia and Latorre and Maradona...

Argentina might have more big names than in the past, but IMO this is not a golden generation, nor is it a golden era of argentine football... (Though in reality, the glory years of football IN argentina was from 1931-2006)

 

For all the great players Argentina have produced for decades, 2 world cups is a poor return really. Especially as one those world cups was down to the genius of one player.

 

Don't forget that great Newells Old Boys team created by Bielsa featuring Balbo, Sensini, Basualdo, Gamboa, Scoponi. Two times CL runner-ups.

But I do think there are some gems currently: Lamela, ripping it in Serie A, Sanchez Mino, the best Boca player since Riquelme and Tevez, Pezzella, who shows echoes of Passarella, Peruzzi, the badass Neymar-stopper, and Andrada, an excellent young keeper who will get his chance. Not too bad, all of these players have the potential to be world class in 2 or 3 years.

 

Thanks for the update. Interesting about Icardi, we've been here before when a young player is really hyped and there is a debate about whether he should be called up for the NT to stop him choosing to play for another country (usually Italy). Clearly he has not done enough to merit a call up and I believe that being called up for a friendly still enables you to change your NT affiliation, so it's a tricky one.

 

Don't get me started on Di Santo mate, just don't.

 

True, remember all the sh#t regarding Higuain not been called up at first? It had gotten to the point that the French National Team called him up and Raymond Domenech wrote Higuain's name on the official list of players. We can't get poached out of potential #9. I think the NT can go with Higuain in 2014, and probably 2018. However, players like Ferreyra and Icardi have to be given a chance to compete for the spot. . . I just don't want to see Peter Crouch, err, I mean Di Santo- that guy is an f'ing stiff.

 

I think looking at di Santo that he has talent. But I am certain he is no nine. More to me he looks like an elongated attacking midfielder.

He still does not attack the box or run across the posts like a nine. Compare him to Icardi who is always hanging around off the last defender and is constantly trying to run in behind, across defenders. It's hardly surprising his idol is Batigol.

And Sabella should keep him in reserve because he has real ability. Pescara okay are not great as a side but he has all the formidable characteristics of a very good nine in the making.

I am of the opinion we should have as many cards in our pack to shuffle and deny these cards to what at the end of the day are competitors.

Just imagine if Higuain was now in French colours or Messi in Spanish red ? It would be galling. Too long have the AFA tolerated losing players to the opposition. Much through their own incompetency as anything else.

Personally if I were Sabella I'd ring Mauro and let him know he is in my plans for the future with the offer of a spot in the summer on the bench. Should Gonzalo be injured I'd like to have a real genuine nine on the bench who is only going to get better and better.

So hands off Prandelli !

 

I think for 2018 Argentina will most likely keep at least %80 of the current line-up! remember these guys will only be 30 by then so i doubt Sabella or whoever is coaching will shift things unless an injury happens to someone and his form dips.

I really hope at least 6 players are untouched and Argentina can build on that core for 2018. Hopefully we win 2014 though, I think this will be a WC perfectly set up for Argentina to win