Diego Maradona: The Argentine Curse?

Diego Maradona is a football immortal in his native Argentina, but could be the biggest obstacle in their path to World Cup glory this summer.

Maradona’s legendary career will live in history, the greatest Argentine player ever, and few people will put him outside the top two players of all time.

That playing background, however,is not translating into coaching success.

Argentina seem to have every piece in place talent wise for a run at the cup. Man for man is there really a better team than them going to South Africa?

Yet few outside of Argentina ever mention them as a contender.

Consider the information below and decide if the struggles of Argentina are down to the coach or playing talent.

Argentina can field a back four including Martin Demichelis, Javier Zanetti, and Walter Samuel.

All three of these defenders started in the UEFA Champions League final.

Samuel and Zanetti played effectively for an Inter Milan team that shut out Bayern Munich in the final, and stifled a rampant Barcelona team on their path to the final.

Despite this talent, Argentina’s qualifying campaign included a 3-1 defeat to Brazil, and a 6-1 defeat to Bolivia.

Paraguay produced a significantly better defensive performance than Argentina in qualifying.

The midfield unit hardly lacks the ability to shield the back four.

Esteban Cambiasso is another Inter player who started the Champions League final, and Liverpool star Javier Mascherano is a holding midfielder who earned the nickname "Pac-Man" for his ability to gobble up balls in the defensive third.

Juan Sebastian Veron is another experienced veteran who contributes well.

In the attacking department, Maradona simply has an embarrassment of riches at his disposal.

Lionel Messi scored over 40 goals in all competitions for Barcelona, and any fan of the English Premier League is familiar with the goal-scoring ability of Carlos Tevez.

This pair is joined by Diego Milito, whose virtuoso performance won the Champions League for Inter.

Despite this talent, Argentina scored only 23 goals in 18 qualifying games. This put them at fifth place in the South American group, level with Venzuela.

When you consider the evidence no argument exists that Maradona is getting the best out of the talent available to him.

So the question must be asked, why not?

One obvious point is that great players simply do not great coaches. See how the coaching exploits of Pele, George Best, and Bobby Charlton panned out. Meanwhile, players of little pedigree such as Jose Mourinho and Guus Hiddink, have went on to greatness.

Sandro Mazzola reported, while he was at Inter, another star player, Luis Suarez, took over as coach.

Mazzola reported that “when the youngsters in the side didn’t know how to move out on the pitch, he was dumbstruck.”

The belief of Suarez was that “if they are at Inter, they must know!”

This could be the problem facing Maradona.

While less talented players have been forced to study the game, devising notes, schemes, and theories for success, he is assuming the team knows things they simply need to be coached.

How many times during Maradona’s playing career did he have to worry about team shape, flow of the game, and matchup personnel?

Coaches must constantly evaluate these factors from the dugout and devise plans on how to best adjust to the opposition.

The ability of Diego to communicate with his players is easily called into question also. Juan Roman Riquelme is a truly gifted player who is a danger to any opposing side. The playmaker has 64 caps for Argentina with 18 goals, but will not play for the national side under Maradona.

Riquelme quit Argentina after Maradona criticized his style of play during a television interview, criticism Riquelme is adamant was not brought up to his face, either on the training field or in the locker room.

It seems a strange way to go about coaching.

Imagine the furor if Landon Donovan quit the USA team after Bob Bradley gave tactical criticism in a live Oprah interview!

Bradley would likely be fired. The deified Maradona seems above such criticism by fans of Argentina.

Such a status of being beyond question, could easily lead a man to believe he is never wrong, eliminating the self evaluation needed to truly succeed at the elite level.

The worst part of all is that Maradona may not realize anything is wrong.

If many teams scraped by in fourth place from their group, particularly with this talent available, you can imagine the likely aftermath.

Brazil in such a position would likely explain the level of performance is unacceptable and they hope to improve before the World Cup begins.

Hardly the case here, a triumphant Maradona gave a gloating press conference and stated his team was going to the World Cup with “all the glory.”

The coach then told all journalist to “s*ck it” and stated the vast magnitude of his achievement.

Did it occur that maybe taking this squad into fourth place is no achievement at all?

It is likely such a talented roster could make the top four coaching themselves.

Many great teams have not lifted the cup, this Argentina team may be the best ever to not even be a contender.

Ironically, the biggest reason for this could be the greatest Argentine of them all.