How Maradona blew Lionel Messi’s World Cup dream

“You can suck it, and keep sucking.”

Those were the remarks of coach Diego Maradonna after Argentina achieved a narrow victory (1-0) over Uruguay in the Final Round (18th) of 2010 World Cup qualifiers after Mario Bolatti scored in the 84th-minute.

This was in response to the massive criticism he received from journalists for Argentina’s struggling outlook in the qualifiers, winning just 6 out of the 18 matches to qualify on 4th position with 28 points. To put things in perspective, if Bolatti failed to score against Uruguay, Maradona’s squad would have had to through Inter-confederation play-offs to earn a spot in the 2010 World Cup.

Maradona took over Alfio Basile’s role as the head coach with just two years of coaching experience with Textil Mandiyú and Racing Club in 1994 and 1995 respectively. A decade had gone by before the 1986 World Cup hero resumed his managerial career, and was boosted straight to the ultimate challenge of heading a national team with zero experience as a successful coach.

The criticism he received was justified in many ways after the squad was clearly inconsistent with their performances as they went 6 wins, 6 draws and 6 losses in their qualifiers with an unforgettable disaster of losing 6-1 against Bolivia in Round 12, when in fact they won 3-0 against the same squad in Round 3 under the previous coach.

The inconsistency can be blamed on the lack of an established squad as Diego picked 108 players across 18 months of international matches resulting in an unsettled squad who were unaware of whether they were needed at all and who their final teammates will be.