Maradona: “Bilardo betrayed me and Grondona lied to me” (Sakai Bela, India)

Buenos Aires.- Maradona sad but calm affirmed in a press release that the manager of the Argentinean team, Carlos Bilardo “betrayed me” and that the president of the AFA, Julio Grondona “lied to me”, when he explained that he cannot continue working in the Argentinean team as coach “because I have codes they have not, and if they remove a collaborator, I cannot accept to continue working”

Surrounded by his collaborators of the World Championship (his two ex assistants Alejandro Mancuso and Héctor Enrique, two physical assistants, Fernando Signorini and Javier Vilatmijana, his defensive adviser Oscar Ruggeri and his Press spokesman, his son-in-law Fernando Molina) as well as his family (his two daughters, Dalma and Gianina and his girl friend Verónica Ojeda), Maradona read a press release and explained that he would not accept questions for the moment, although it is known that he has already sold an interview in television for the next Sunday in a popular program of the conductor Susana Giménez.

In the strongest part of the redding, Maradona recalled that days ago “when we were in mourning, Bilardo worked in shadow to throw me. When Grondona asked me for the list of players convoked for the match vs Ireland (next August 11, it was just a story as Bilardo and Humberto (president’s son abd Vince president of the National Team department, had already done it”.

The football star referred to the last days upon returning from the World Championship of South Africa, qualifying them as “disturbing” when he recalled that “we were to continue, after I was called to extinguish the fire and in the lockers room after the match against Germany and in the presence of witnesses and players, Grondona told me that he was satisfied with my work and wanted to continue but already in Buenos Aires when we met, five minutes later he was telling me that he wanted to remove seven of my collaborators and he knows that if they do with only one, I will leave because I have codes that I learned from my parents and can look in the eyes of everybody, though I can be mistaken”.

Maradona refers to the suggestive change operated since this week, when everything indicated that his contract would be renewed and it would be explained by a change in the lack of backing that former he had from the government of the president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who invited him to the Government House and found the negative of the coach who considered there was nothing to celebrate with a fifth position and few hours later he appeared in Venezuela at the side of the president Hugo Chávez in the moment when he was breaking the relations with the president of Colombia Alvaro Uribe. Freeing Gordona from the pressure of having to renew the contract of Maradona (the president of the AFA awaits that with the new Act of Media the government will grant his institution a TV channel), the veteran directive took out the card he usually uses in such cases generating that the coach leaves without having to fire him so he told him that seven of his collaborators have to leave knowing that Maradona would not accept.

Maradona also referred when he took the conduction of the Argentinean team in November 2008 when he said that he found himself “with a team with internal problems and a group wholly divided so we had to transmit to the players the meaning of wearing the National vest” and he recalled that since “1990 the quarter-finals of a World Championship could not be reached and with our players successful in all teams, this means that things are been done badly and not much is done to change them”.

And he also was warning for the future saying that “any person that will conduce the team must know that the betrayal is in any corner and that there are persons that only take care of their personal interest and their bank account”.-

Since these declarations, the communication media dedicated themselves to look for Bilardo and Grondona, though specially the first one, emitting every time the recording of the statement of April 13, 2009, when he said “if Maradona leaves I have to leave too, all of us should leave” something that seems he does not mean to comply with when he renews his contract for four years more.

At the same time, there started a career to look for the succession of Maradona though for the moment the coach for the next friendly match of August 11, Sergio Batista, who was in charge of the team sub-20 and conducted the team that in Peking won the Golden medal in 2008. though it is not clear who prepared the list of the convoked players among which there are those of the World Championship that do not participate in the Argentinean league (not called because the Aperture Contest starts next August 6) another seven of the European leagues, the lateral backs Emiliano Insúa and Pablo Zabaleta, the midfielders Fernando Gago and Ever Banega, the left lateral Jesús Dátolo, the forwarder Ezequiel Lavezzi and the central back Fabricio Coloccini.

In change, it is not sure the continuity of Batista not even for the friendly match of September 7 in Buenos Aires vs the World Champion, Spain, meanwhile Alejandro Sabella, the present coach of Estudiantes (champion of the Copa Libertadores de América 2009 and from one minute to win the World Championship of Clubs vs Barcelona) is the one who counts with more chances to remain with this position.

Sabella was Bilardo’s player in the Estudiantes, champion of 1982 and also he was the second field assistant to Daniel Passarella in the World Championship in France 1998 therefore he has certain experience in the World championships.

With some less chance though in career as well there is Miguel Angel Russo, as he also played with Bilardo in the same periods of Sabella, and at present in Racing Club though he was formerly Champion of the Copa Libertadores with Boca Juniors in 2007 and finalist in the World Championship of Clubs in the same year vs Milan.

There is incognita whether Grondona would call Carlos Bianchi, the coach that was the most successful in the history of Argentinean football, winner of four Copas Libertadores and three Intercontinental, but he does not count with the directive’s sympathy who cannot swallow that in two occasions he did not accept the offer, in 1998 and 2004, though he over passes with much difference all the surveys.

As balance of Maradona’s work, there remain twenty five matches as Argentinean coach of which he won eighteen and lost seven, with no tie. Something typical of his character, nothing of gray, only white and black.