End of Maradona Era with Argentina

The Argentine Football Association (AFA) has announced that Diego Maradona has ended his role as the country’s team coach. Before meeting with Julio Grondona, the AFA president, last Monday Maradona had said that he would like to stay in the job. However, he rejected demands for him to change his backroom team so the AFA voted not to renew his contract and have placed the under 20 coach Sergio Batista temporarily in charge.

Argentina lost 4- 0 to Germany in the quarter finals of the World Cup 2010. Grondana said, "It is difficult to agree. The hardest difference to agree on was changing some of Diego's staff. Nobody has been sacked. A contract has not been extended because the conditions were not suitable. When you cannot agree with somebody you love, you are not happy at all. I always want to talk to him [Maradona], but sometimes it is difficult because this is not the best moment."

There was a different point of view put across by the AFA general secretary Jose Luis Meizner, he told the cable channel C5N, "I would be a hypocrite if I didn't admit there was a general disliking of several aspects of the cycle that ended with the World Cup. We did not see any intention to show humility, to say that things should have been done better. There was no evaluation, no review, no conclusions. These are the things you have to think about in order to think about the future."

So far a number of candidates have been suggested as a replacement to Maradona including Estudiantes coach Alejando Sabella, Miguel Angel Rosso and Batista, however, Grondona says that there is no one yet being considered for the full time job. Grandona said, "We have time to choose the technical staff. We have not thought about anybody yet. Batista is a member of the staff of this body so he will obviously fill the place as long as is needed."

In the 1986 World Cup final both Batista and Maradona were playing in midfield, over twenty years later in 2008 Batista managed Argentina when they won the Olympic gold medal. He will be choosing the team for the country’s next game against the Republic of Ireland on August 11th at Dublin’s Aviva Stadium.

Before Maradona’s meeting on Monday Gronoda had said that he was hoping a new four year deal could be agreed. However, whilst Maradona wanted to keep his job, he also said that if the AFA dismissed any of his staff then he would refuse to renew the contract, "If they touch a hair of one of my guys, even if it's the masseur or the kitman, I'm going," Before this Grondona had already said that he wished to make changes to Maradona’s staff, he said the AFA “had lots of problems” with one of Maradona’s assistants, Oscar Ruggeri the former Argentinean defender. Therefore its not surprising that Maradona refused to bow to Grondona’s demand that they change a number of assistants including Maradona’s friend Alejandro Mancuso.

Argentina started the World Cup very convincingly, they topped their group and then went on to beat Mexico 3 – 1, however, their terrible loss to the Germans gave more ammunition to those who wanted to see Maradona removed from the post. Maradona has managed the team since November 2008 and in that time they have won eight games and lost seven.