Jose Pekerman Argentina’s coach resigns
Pekerman’s successes came with the Argentinian youth squads, he took them to three world championships. It is a huge leap from coaching a U-17 side to the national team. Ask the number of college coaches who switched to the NFL and failed miserably, e.g., Steve Spurrier is one of the biggest examples. Remember his Gators “Run and Gun” offense that went nowhere with the Redskins.
In youth championships strategy is often overshadowed by the impromptu that the youth bring to the game which makes the games unpredictable at times. An element that the coach really can’t control.
With the national team you have to switch to a more tactical mindset. Teams play to their strengths. What really impressed us about the Argentinians in the earlier rounds was the one touch soccer that they played. This is anticipatory soccer at its best, one passes the ball to a certain point in the field that player who is running from position x will get to in some point in the future.
This Argentina was a collection of individuals. Tevez taking on the German defenders. Ayala blasting the ball to the other end of the field. Crespo standin up front waiting for someone to feed him the ball. It is never a good sign when goal poacher like Crespo who is used to expending most of his energy around the penalty box has to wander downfield to look for his chances. He was spent. There was no support.
Then you take out your playmaker. I think Cambiasso is a great player but he is nowhere in the league of Riquelme. The one goal that they scored was a great corner taken by Riquelme. The midfield became less attacking wthout him and fell back. Not to say that the Germans played much better. Klose came alive with that one goal. Podolksi showed some hustle but that nice combination play with Klose was missing. Ballack was on for that one sweetly timed cross but the rest of his passes were pathetically inaccurate.
Pekerman’s substitutions might have been made with Abbondanzieri’s injury in mind. In college games, forced into an unexpected situation, the coach has to improvise bringing in substitutes who have played little. Pekerman probably went in with that mindset taking out Riquelme (remember Riqueleme walked out slowly off the field. He was mad. You’ll hear about it in the papers tomorrow) bringing in Cambiasso and Cruz. Maybe the 6′ 3″ Cruz was for defensive purposes to support the inexperienced Franco (the replacement goalie) in set pieces but you never can count the Germans down. The best way to keep the pressure on was to keep Riquelme and substitute Crespo with Messi., and keep attacking.
Remember Argentina also went through a long dry spell against Mexico till Pekerman brought in Messi and Tevez very late which paid off immediately. But till then the Argentinians had a tough time breaking down the Rafael Marquez led defence. Pekerman should not have gone away from that strategy. Today he made some inexplicable changes that I can only attribute to his having coached the youth team.
We will probably hear no end to the post mortem in the Argentinian press but it is sad to see a team that played such breath taking soccer go out this way.