Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Argentine Watch

Hopefully this will become a regular section in which I search various news sources for changes in the status of players in the Argentinean National Team or on the fringe. There's been interesting news regarding two of the players who I covered in my 'future of Argentina' articles.

River Plate goalkeeper German Lux will join Spanish club Real Mallorca in the January transfer window. This would mean that Argentina's 3 top 'keepers (the other two being El Pato in Getafe and Leo Franco in Atletico Madrid) all now play in mid-table La Liga clubs. Or in Mallorca's case, hopefully a mid-table club since they look to be flirting with relegation danger so far. That said, some of their bad results have come because of goalkeeping errors by aptly named veteran stopper Antonio Prats, so maybe Lux can help them stay afloat and avoid the fate of fellow former River 'keeper Constanzo whose club Alaves was relegated last season.

I wrote that former Boca midfielder Federico Insua would probably act as back-up to Maxi Rodrigues and Luis Gonzalez, but apparently not, according to the Argentinean media. They think Basile likes him so much that he'll be the new playmaker. I remain unconvinced that he should and ready to accuse the former Boca boss of anti-River bias if he doesn't give the in-form Aimar and D'Alessandro (both of Real Zaragoza in La Liga) a look-in. The media reckons that Aimar would be second choice behind Insua since they think he hasn't regained his form yet. I'd say he's well on his way, given recent displays in the league.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Linda,

Interesting to know that youre an Argentinian fan. Even amazed by the fact that you come from New Zealand. The most interesting is the nicknames given to your country's national teams such as

1) Rugby - All Blacks
2) Football - All Whites
3) Basketball - Tall Blacks
4) Cricket - Black Caps
5) Hockey - Black Sticks
6) Ice Hockey - Ice Blacks
7) American Football - Black Helmets
8) Softball - Black Socks

Anything else that I've missed, perhaps you would like to share

John
Malaysia

Linda said...

Welcome! Hang around, it's nice to see a fellow Argentina fan.

The thing about New Zealand national teams is that they all use at least one of three words: black, white, and ferns (our national symbol).

You've got a good collection there - I didn't even know some of them! We also have the (women's) netball team (Silver Ferns) and the Women's Rugby team who just won their World Cup - the Black Ferns.