I am deeply saddened and strongly disagree that Jose Pekerman
would quit as the Argentinan coach. His announcement came right after they lost to Germany which makes me hope those are words of emotions and not based on logical reasoning.
Argentina was superb on the field playing great football, ran and positions themselves well on the field and was so dangerous on counter-attacks and opening opportunities in goal scoring. Jose assembled a young, explosive and attacking team that could light the scoreboard every game. You cannot take away anything from this team who played against the host nation, were scoring against one of the best goalies in the world and only lost on penalty kicks with their substitute keeper guarding their goal.
Pekerman said For sure I am not going to continue. We haven’t made the progress that we were hoping for. I really regret the fact that we haven’t achieved the goals we set ourselves. Am I going to stay on as Argentina manager? No, I think it’s time for me to go. It’s the end of an era, and I definitely won’t be staying on.
We didn’t expect to have the problems that we did. We had to substitute two players, and that cost us dear. Germany had the advantage of being more adaptable than we were. We were pretty much on top throughout the match, and my players gave their all. I always felt that we were better than Germany, but that’s not always enough to get the win. All that I can say is that Argentina played good, attractive football and won the fans over.
This team has given the people back home a lot of joy and grounds for optimism. The players were worthy of the footballing tradition that we have in Argentina, and our country will always remember how well they performed at this tournament. Sometimes, though, history isn’t fair. It’s just a shame that Argentina are out of this World Cup. We could feel that the fans were behind us all the way through the tournament, and I can assure them that Argentina will carry on playing great football.
Please stay, Argentina’s young team is going to mature and I can see them advancing to the finals in the next World Cup.
[tags] FIFA World Cup, World Cup, FIFA World Cup 2006, Germany, Argentina, Jose Pekerman[/tags]
