Congrats to the US National Team, which punched its ticket to World Cup 2010 with a wonderful victory over Honduras last night (no small feat – the Hondurans were 8-0 in WC qualifying matches before their loss yesterday).
But the real drama is down in South America, with the Argentines. Argentina is on any soccer fan’s short list of teams that could easily win the whole tournament — with the single possible exception of Brazil, no country has as many spectacular, world-class players at all positions, and you could easily field two separate squads of Argentines that could hold their own against anyone in the world. Or so you would think, anyway – in fact, Argentina’s had real problems getting its act together during qualifying, and they’re hanging by a thread. They entered play last night (a home game against last-place Peru) in 5th place — only the top 4 from South American get an automatic qualification, with the 5th place team has to endure a two-game playoff against the 4th place team (probably Costa Rica) from the N. American division. In the midst of their qualifying campaign they appointed soccer god Diego Maradona as their coach – an odd, possibly inexplicable move (given, among other things, Maradona’s complete lack of any coaching experience at any level), and they had suffered three straight defeats and looked headed for the exit – a win against lowly Peru was an absolute must. [There’s a good highlights video of the game posted at the NY Times soccer blog] Argentina scores early in the second half to take a 1-0 lead, but, unbelievably, the Peruvians tie it up in the last minute of regulation time. With 4 minutes of extra time added on, the Argentines go on the attack, and at 3:55 get the winning goal — scored by Martin Palermo, a guy who had last played for the national team ten years ago when, in a truly mind-boggling feat of nerves and lack of composure, he flubbed not one, not two, but three penalty kicks in a game against Colombia – ah, sweet redemption!
The setup for the final match of qualifying this coming Wednesday couldn’t be more exciting — the standings now have Argentina in 4th place with 25 points, Uruguay in 5th place with 24 points, and Ecuador in 6th with 23 points. Argentina plays Uruguay (in Montevideo) on Wednesday – a win by either team (3 points) guarantees them the 4th qualification spot. A loss, though, could see Ecuador vaulting over them both if Ecuador can beat the Chileans in Chile (the Chileans, having already qualified in 3rd place, might be expected to put a somewhat weaker side on the field than they would in other circumstances). It doesn’t get any better than this, soccer fans — as a neutral observer (OK, it’s true, I bet $50 several months ago on Argentina to win the world cup [at 5-1], so I guess I’m not entirely neutral) it’s almost inconceivable that we might have a world cup without Argentina, but there you have it. If any of you have any business down in South America on Wednesday, don’t expect anyone to be getting any work done —