The image of Diego Maradona is being played with the Argentinean team (Yahoo)

In only two matches and in scarcely four days, Diego Maradona can arrive to play his image built over three decades since he shown as footballist and turned out to one of the best players of all times.

Maradona is the coach of the Argentinean team that to the incredulity of football fans of the whole World counts with chance as not to classify for the next World Championship of South Africa if there appear some results, or even if the Argentinean team itself does not obtain many points vs Peru at home and vs Uruguay as visitor, upon the closure of the eliminatory.

The Argentinean team is in this moment in the fifth place of the classification in the Southamerican Group of ten teams, of which the first four will obtain the direct passage for the World Championship, and the fifth, precisely, will have to play two matches vs the one that will result fourth of the six participants in the final contest of the North and Central America (Concacaf) zone, that is calculated to be between Honduras and Costa Rica..

For the Argentines, in many cases football fanatics, the fact that over eighteen rounds of the Eliminatory, only two for the final, the team should suffer so much to classify for the World Championship, and it seems incredible, and they do not trust much Maradona in his position as coach, but that in the final, the technical quality and the personality of the players, added to other matters, as the importance the Argentinean Federation (AFA) has in the context of the Southamerican Confederation (Conmebol) may contribute to obtain positive results.

Many of Argentinean fans do not trust Maradona as coach since the moment of his designation, when the majority of the inquiries placed in this position Carlos Bianchi, four times Champion of the Copa Libertadores de América (three with Boca Juniors and one with Vélez Sársfield) and three times Intercontinental Champion in Japan (two with Boca and one with Velez) but the bad relationship with the president of the AFA, Grondona, generated the change of direction.

Grondona considered, when Alfio Basile renounced in 2008 as coach due to the mediocre campaign of the team in the first matches of the Eliminatories, that was the moment to convoke Maradona, who was complaining that he had no chance in spite of such experience in the Argentinean team as player, and in spite that scarcely one year and a half before he was admitted in a psychiatric hospital.

Maradona debuted with good results in friendly matches in Europe vs Scotland and France and everything seemed to generate a good synergy with the fans, reporters and players, but slowly it was not so when the official commitments arrived and the Argentinean team did not find a game line, they based only in motivation that was transmitted by the ex star of football as to the commitment for the white/light blue vest, but the results were not positives.

There also appeared some elements that generated distance between the people and in the players themselves, who did not see tactical advances in the team, as well as strange defeats, specially vs Bolivia at the height of the city of La Paz (6-1) and afterwards vs Equator in Quito (2-0) which some triumphs at home (4-0 vs Venezuela and 1-0 vs Colombia) were not enough to finish even.

These results generated that in the last series of two matches, vs Brazil and Paraguay, the Argentinean team had to play very much its chance to go the World Championship and the fact not having obtained any point, altered the spirit, the behavior and the original project dropped..

In these days in which the Argentinean team plays its last crucial six points, appears the shadow of its only elimination in classificatory contests, vs Peru in 1969 that did not allow to arrive to the World Championship in Mexico, 1970 and Maradona plays last cards as coach. An elimination, and even possibly the fact to have play an extra match would be the final of his cycle and the final change of his image among the fans.

Even today without giving names, Maradona gives the impression to the media that his ex coach in the World Championship of Mexico 1986 and present general secretary of the National Team, Carlos Bilardo, wants to take his position, meanwhile changes permanently the convoked players and leaves aside those who were permanently called, without being understood any of the measures.

Vs Perú, in the first of the two matches, will play as first team players Rolando Schiavi, Emiliano Insúa, Gonzalo Higuaín, Enzo Pérez and Pablo Aimar, where in all the cases will be official debuts with the Argentinean vest, when the Eliminatories are ending, what may be the major indication of the disorder that rules in Maradona’s team.

Also the fortune will take his part. Equator receives Uruguay in Quito, and if they end even, if Argentina wins and stays above both at only one match to the final, they must go to Montevideo to confront with Uruguay that has better goal difference. The Uruguayan team, then, could confront the historical opportunity that winning by any result, would leave behind its neighbor Argentina and this could be availed by Equator that winning over Chile will also obtain the pass for the World Championship and those of Maradona will be left with nothing at all.

The Argentines, now, make accounts with the calculator, but few go through the nerves as Maradona. If someone is putting his image in the football it is just himself.