03 September 2011
It shows just what kind of a long-standing mess Argentinian football is in when one of the greatest compliments we can pay to any club from Argentina is that they are "well run".
No coincidence then that some of those "well run" clubs have been the most consistently competitive over the last few years. Vélez Sarsfield, Lanus and Estudiantes: all sensibly managed with a clear business plan, relative stability of playing and coaching staff and no scandals with barras bravas or financial irregularities.
I say "relative stability" because anyone who watches Argentinian football in the long term will know that nothing is certain. Every player is liable to leave if the right big-money offer comes in from Europe, Brazil or Asia. This, in my view as somebody who watches South American game for beautiful football, skill and technique, is the single-most depressing factor affecting the game in Argentina. Great teams are not allowed to develop. They enjoy, at most, one year, perhaps a single trophy, maybe a run at the Libertadores, and then they are broken up and sold on and the club starts again and rebuilds.
This summer we have seen this at Vélez Sarsfield. Probably the best run club in the country under two ex-Vélez players, Director of Football Christian Bassedas and Coach Ricardo Gareca, Vélez have been a force in every tournament over the last three years or so. Currently Champions, they won the 2009 Causura, came second in the 2010 Apertura and managed to mount a convincing campaign in the Copa Libertadores last Season, reaching the semi-finals before a narrow, arguably undeserved, elimination at the hands at Peñarol. Generally a club - even a giant like Boca Juniors - relaxes its grip on the domestic tournament in order to fully focus on the glory of the South American equivalent of the Champions League. But not Vélez. Gareca always seemed certain of the quality of the squad at his disposal, and it was hard to disagree with him. Take midfield as an example; last Season Gareca usually started with Maxi Moralez as his 10, but he knew he had the wonderful David Ramirez on the bench, alongside Ricky Alvarez, and Augusto Fernandez who could play that position too. In front of whichever enganche he chose, he had the formidable pairing of Santiago Silva and Juan Manuel Martinez, but he also had Mexican International Guillermo Franco in reserve. Gareca could rest big players in games and still not worry about losing, because their replacements were so good.
On top of that, Gareca's Vélez play good football. Typically Argentine in style, with long build-up play composed of intricate short-passing, full back Emiliano Papa supporting attacks from the wing, and Moralez looking to find a forward with a clever little through-ball or a penetrative dribble, with Razotti and Zapata directing traffic behind him, they could be absolutely thrilling to watch in full flow. Gareca generally brought Alvarez on late in the game to stretch the tired opposition with his dangerous dribbling and directness, while Ramirez could switch with Moralez without any drop in quality. The frontmen made a great pair: Silva, with his burly rampages through the box, great in the air, immensely strong, but with decent movement and good feet, dragged defenders all over the place, while Martinez made surging runs from the flanks and the edge of the box with the ball at his feet, equally able to finish or slip his partner a pass.
Vélez have been great to watch under Gareca. But this summer that team has been broken up. Ricky Alvarez off to Inter Milan. Maxi Moralez gone to Atalanta. Santiago Silva left for Fiorentina. Bassedas has managed the transfer Market astutely and the clubs academy produces a steady stream of talented youngsters, but even if Gareca - who almost left himself, with the press linking him with the Colombian national team job a few weeks back - can maintain some trophy-winning form, the likelihood is it will be a while before this rebuilt team are quite as easy on the eye as the 2010/11 vintage. Ramirez can replace Maxi, but there is no obvious replacement for Silva since the AFA blocked Vélez's move for Denis Stracqalursi, now of Everton.
This is only the most recent example of the talent drain from Argentina. Possibly the most attractive, romantic club side the country has produced in the last few years, Angel Cappa's Huracán team of 2009, lasted a single Season before its leading players were sold off in various directions. Javier Pastore left for Palermo in Sicily, Matías DeFederico went, disastrously, to Corinthians of Brazil, and Mario Bolatti joined Fiorentina. That team, so dazzling on its way to a controversial final day loss (of both a game and a title) to Vélez, would almost certainly have won the league the next year if it had been allowed to stay together. More to the point, Cappa was unable to replicate the quality of stylish ball-playing he had summoned from that talented bunch with their replacements, and he left shortly afterward as Huracán began another slide towards relegation.
The problem is obviously chiefly an economic one. Argentina's clubs cannot match the wages available abroad, and worse, they need the money from sales simply to stay afloat. That includes the famous giants Boca Juniors and River Plate. Contrast this with the current situation in Brazil, where the strong economy means that players need not look across the Atlantic. If they were Argentinian players at an Argentinian equivalent of Santos, Neymar and Ganso would have been sold by now, certainly in the aftermath of that Copa Libertadores win. But they are still in Brazil, joined by an increasing number of stars who have been lured back from Europe, including Ronaldinho, Fred and Juninho.
In order to assure consistent success, Boca developed a policy which worked well for much of the last decade but malfunctioned once the stream of talent from their academy structure dried up a little. They invested in scouting and their youth sides fed youngsters into the first team; a policy that delivered, most notably, Carlos Tevez, Fernando Gago and Ever Banega, where they joined older players returned from Europe (Martin Palermo, for example) or the kinds of solid middleweight professionals who form the bedrock of the Argentine domestic game. The youngsters helped keep Boca successful, and they were sold off early, generally replaced by another academy product. The way Gago's sale to Real Madrid meant that Banega was ushered into the first team, winning both a Championship and a Libertadores in his short spell there, and guaranteeing a consistency in the stylish way the team played, passing out from the back and constantly circulating possession, is the perfect example of Boca's methodology. But what happened next is a great illustration of how the system has broken down; Banega's sale to Valencia left a gap in the team. Only this one wasn't filled by an eager youth team player, because nobody was good enough. Ezequiel Benavidez, the presumed heir to Gago and Banega, certainly wasn't.
River Plate had a similar system, only in their case there was less silverware and more of the sense that there was no plan whatsoever, only desperation to fix financial problems through player auctions. They sold off players before they had even really performed consistently at River. Alexis Sanchez played at the Monumental in 2007-2008 alongside Radamel Falcao and Fernando Belluschi. All three were gone before 2010. And that trend continued. Erik Lamela, the one unqualified positive of River's relegation season, played in the first team for two tournaments, less than a calendar year, before leaving for Roma. Smaller clubs like Lanus tend to maintain smaller squads with fewer star performers. But those star players they do develop are always the ones sold. In the last few years Lanus have emerged as a legitimate challenger in the League, and as a team playing the right way. They won it in 2007 and in the years since the three biggest stars of that campaign; Jose Sand, Sebastian Blanco and Diego Valeri, have all been sold or loaned out. It is a tribute to the sensible recruitment and fine youth structure in place at Lanus that they came so close to winning it again last season, but you have to wonder how long they can hold onto the stars of this rebuilt squad (which ironically includes the returned Valeri). Indeed, look around the European game at the Argentinian stars in clubs in Spain and Italy and you will find that most of the high profile players came from smaller clubs in Argentina, not Boca or River.
So many standout young players leaving at such a young age can only damage a domestic game, and affect the standard of football played throughout the Country. It is a bad thing for Argentine football Lamela has gone so soon, so young. It's a bad thing for fans and casual viewers of the game. It is worse that Argentina, then, can no longer host a stylish winning football team for any longer than a year before market forces demand it be broken down into parts and sold off like a used car. A new great club side will emerge soon - Lanus looked close last season, and who knows how good Racing can be if both their Colombian forwards can make it through an entire season without injury - but the only certainty after that is that they won’t last long as a collective. Look up any young star playing at Boca or Independiente or Tigre and they'll each be linked with the usual European giants. Barring an unlikely economic miracle, it's hard to see this situation changing anytime soon. Argentinian clubs and fans seem to accept it readily enough, and I suppose the best approach is to look for a positive -- it plays a definite part in the spectacular production line rolling out an unbelievable number of talented footballers to play for Argentina and to thrill the world.
