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Last June a friend and I decided to break our self-imposed ban on attending soccer matches at Giants Stadium. The reason? The U.S. National Team was hosting two-time world champion Argentina in a friendly in the New Jersey swampland. We weren't alone, as close to 77,000 hot and sweaty bodies packed into the venerable stadium, leaving us peering down from the final row of the upper deck and racing for my car as the skies opened up in the final 10 minutes causing a torrential downpour.
A little more than a year later, there's a scenario however unlikely, which the U.S. and Argentina could face each other with a 2010 World Cup berth on the line.
In short, the U.S. currently sits third in the CONCACAF hexagonal ahead Saturday's home qualifier in Utah against El Salvador and next week's match at Trinidad & Tobago. Should the U.S. slip up against the teams sitting fifth and sixth in the group, there's a possibility it could finish fourth, meaning it would play a two-leg playoff with the fifth place team in South America (CONMEBOL).
And speaking of the fifth place team in South America, depending on how Saturday's do-or-die match against eternal rival Brazil in Rosario ends up, there's a strong chance that team could be Argentina, which holds a tenuous spot on the final automatic COMNEBOL berth with four matches left.
Under all-time legend Diego Maradona, the Albicelestes have struggled, including an infamous 6-1 loss in La Paz to Bolivia in early April. Argentina (22 points) enters Saturday's match off a 3-2 win over Russia in Moscow, but it's last qualifier was a 2-0 loss to Ecuador in Quito, which left Ecuador only two points behind Argentina in the table. (Ecuador plays at Columbia earlier Saturday.)
Compounding matters, Argentina's remaining matches are away to Paraguay (24 points), a must win at home to last-place Peru and at Uruguay (18 points), which is itself four points behind Argentina for fourth before this weekend's matches.
Argentina, down to eighth in the FIFA rankings, has qualified for nine-straight World Cup finals, having last missed out in 1970. It's pedigree, however, won't mean much Saturday in Rosario, as group-leading Brazil (27 points) would clearly love to add to its rivals misery. (8:30 p.m., Pay-Per-View)
From a pure talent standpoint it would be nothing short of remarkable if Argentina failed to reach South Africa. The Albicelestes have talent and depth at every position and arguably the world's best player in Lionel Messi, who will play in his hometown.
Yet oddly enough, despite a phalanx of talent at some of the biggest clubs in the world, Maradona has brought in nine players from the domestic league as well as Newcastle United flop Fabricio Coloccini. Overall, outside of the forwards (Sergio Aguero, Lisandro Lopez, Deigo Milito, Carlos Tevez, etc.) this Argentina roster isn't exactly packed with as many household names as we've come to expect, including five uncapped players.
Maradona is also banking that old hands Juan Sebastian Veron and Martin Palermo, not to mention 36-year-old Inter captain Javier Zanetti still have something left in the tank.
He also took an almost unprecedented action and named his starting XI, notably pairing Messi and Tevez up top.
The easy thing to do in the media is to lay all the blame on Argentina's struggles on Maradona, yet the team is only 2-2-0 in qualifiers since he took over for Alfio Basile last year. Most the damages in qualifying came under Basile, notably home draws to Ecuador and Paraguay.
The question still remains whether hiring the strong-willed Maradona 10 months ago was the right choice, speaking nothing his well-documented personal problems off the field. Hiring a former legend to coach a national team can be a mixed bag. It worked for Germany at the 2006 World Cup with Jurgen Klinsmann, yet we saw Hugo Sanchez flame out last year while managing Mexico. Or simply look at Brazil, which took a different approach by hiring Dunga, who wasn't the typical Brazilian dribbling ace, rather a discipline minded, hard tackling midfielder who's tried to make the Seleção a more complete two-way unit as witnessed during June's Confederation Cup triumph.
Much like Argentina's rich pedigree, Maradona's personal accolades speak on their own, but won't mean much once the whistle blows in Saturday it'll all be about his first team selection and putting those players in position to succeed. It's doubtful the Argentine public will be willing to forgive Maradona should the country fail to qualify for South Africa, especially right on the heels of a television/debt dispute that delayed the start of the 2009-10 Torneo Apertura.
If the worst happens (aside from failing to qualify) and Argentina falls into fifth place and somehow ends up playing the U.S. with a trip to South Africa on the line, it might not be the worst thing in the world. At the very least it would give Maradona, assuming he'd still be the coach if that scenario unfurls, a chance to find a little redemption. As we all know his last competitive trip to the States didn't end well, when he was sent home from the 1994 World Cup for a failed drug test midway through the tournament.
