Will Argentina, rather than Brazil, prove to be South America's leading contender at next year's World Cup finals in South Korea and Japan? That question, premature as it may seem, was on the minds of many of us last week after watching Argentina's impressive 2-1 win against Italy at the Olympic Stadium in Rome.
While Brazil were last weekend engaged in the relatively easy task of beating the USA 2-1 in a Pasadena friendly, Argentina took on much more serious opponents in Italy, completely outplaying the Euro 2000 runners-up with a performance in which their accurate close passing, intuitive moving off the ball and explosive pace were mesmerising.
Italy can, and often do, play badly in friendlies, yet the final scoreline in Rome last week was misleading. Argentinian strikers Kily Gonzales and Hernan Crespo scored magnificent goals but the visitors could easily have won 4-1 or 5-1. Italy's best player was goalkeeper Gigi Buffon, who saved at least three certain goals, while Argentinian midfielder Juan Sorin hit the post and Crespo had a perfectly good goal disallowed by French referee Alain Sars.
In a sense, you need only look at the Argentinian line-up to understand why they are likely to start as one of the favourites next year. In attack, Lazio's Crespo was flanked by the Valencia pair Gonzales and Pablo Aimar, while the midfield was run by Lazio's Sebastian Veron, aided and abetted by the defensive work of club team-mate Diego Simeone and the rightsided attacking of Inter Milan's Javier Zanetti.
Defensive foundations are securely placed on AS Roma's Walter Samuel, aided by another Valencia player in Roberto Ayala and Arsenal's Nelson Vivas. Furthermore, one of the most impressive players on the night was Sorin, one of the few squad members who does not play his club soccer in Europe but rather in Brazil with Cruzeiro. As for the Argentine goalkeeper, German Burgos of Majorca, it was hard to offer a judgement since he was called on to make his first serious save in the 91st minute of the game.
On top of all that, some distinctly useful players including Monaco's Marcelo Gallardo, Lazio's Claudio Lopez and Napoli's Claudio Husain were all relegated to the substitutes's bench while AC Milan's Fernando Redondo and Roma's Gabriel Batistuta were both ruled out by injury.
While none other than Batistuta has called his international manager Marcelo Bielsa "the most important coach for my formation as a player", it hardly came as a surprise to hear that Bielsa's Brazilian counterpart, Emerson Leao, was under fire last weekend. Brazilian "old boy" Socrates described Leao as someone who embodies "the 20 worst defects a person could have", while suggesting that "any similarity between Brazilian football and Brazilian prisons is no co-incidence".
Socrates is clearly exaggerating and Brazil will doubtless bring together a formidable side next year, the usual polemics nothwithstanding. At this point, however, the Brazilians know all too well that one of their most serious opponents will be their traditional rivals, Argentina.
