How do you buy votes if you are a club chairman in Buenos Aires? Hire Maradona and try to avoid falling out with your star striker, as Martin Gambarotta explains
That football and politics mix in Argentina is nothing new. But rarely has there been such an explicit case than the recent events at Boca Juniors. Mauricio Macri, the club’s millionaire president who runs his own centre-right party, is running for the lower house of congress in Buenos Aires in the election scheduled for October.
Just another Arsene Wenger defensive failure? Or misunderstood man? Damian Hall tries to get to the bottom of a player who has impressed some influential coaches
Though much lauded for his astute transfer acquisitions and alchemist’s touch, there’s a theory that Arsène Wenger is actually a pretty poor judge of defenders. Gilles Grimandi, Pascal Cygan, Oleg Luzhny and Igor “fawn on ice” Stepanovs collectively conspire to let Frank Sinclair sleep easy at night, while Silvinho, Lauren and Ashley Cole all play like wannabe wingers. It seems the Professor shops for stoppers like most of us shop for Christmas presents for the in-laws – search around reluctantly for a bit, wearily realise whatever you buy probably won’t be deemed good enough and plump for the nearest bargain. And then there’s Nelson Vivas. It’s difficult to decide whether or not the Argentina right-back fits the thesis.
Gabriele Marcotti, who predicted the poor displays of France and Argentina in WSC two months ago, attempts to sort World Cup fact from fiction
For a competition that lasts 31 days – and one in which half the teams play just three matches – it’s quite remarkable that the World Cup is held in such high esteem as a barometer of footballing trends and relative strength. Especially a competition such as this one, where poor refereeing and bizarre episodes saw the World Cup lose a host of juggernauts (or potential juggernauts) before the quarter-finals, as fans of Portugal, Nigeria, Argentina, Italy and France will confirm. Still, this was not a 64-match exercise in futility. Once the hype subsides and the pundits go back to spouting the obvious about players whose names they can actually pronounce, we’ll be left with a neat set of memories we can stow in the back of our consciousness.
What do you do when you stop being the world's best player? Diego Maradona still hasn't come up with a satisfactory answer, as Martin Gambarotta reports
Of all the visits Diego Maradona received while ailing with a faulty heart in a private clinic in Buenos Aires, one stood out for its symbolism and could well have a place in local football lore in the future. The visit lasted 15 minutes. Enough time for an 18-year-old boy by the name of Javier Saviola to drop his national team shirt at the feet of Diego’s hospital bed. Saviola, River Plate’s new sensation, had just ended the season as the league’s top scorer. Only one other player had accomplished a similar feat when he was younger: Diego Maradona.
Thursday 1 The Department of Employment issue new rules on work permits. Players will be given permits for the length of their contracts rather than having their cases reviewed at the end of each season, and the rule stipulating that non-EU players must be among the top five wage earners at their clubs is scrapped. Forest's search for a manager ends with the appointment of the impressively tanned David Platt, who says: "The two months I had at Sampdoria were a massive learning curve." That's just what Sampdoria fans will have been thinking when they went down. The charges against Sol Camp≠bell for assaulting a steward after the Derby v Spurs match last autumn are dropped. Arsenal spend £3.5 million on a Brazilian full back, Silvinho, who says: "I have been following Arsenal ever since I knew they were watching me."
Friday 2 The PFA's Gordon Taylor criticises the changes to work permit rules. "We already have more foreign players than anywhere else in the world. Removing the wages criteria means you are opening the door to players who are not neccesarily top quality". Terry McDermott joins the Barnes-Dalglish dream team at Celtic as "social manager" – a highly specialised position which involves a lot of shouting and laughing plus the collecting of betting slips.