Argentina football news: 36 red cards in one match

The event was the Primera D game between Claypole and Victoriano Arenas in the 'burbs of Buenos Aires. With home team Claypole winning 2-0 and Victoriano Arenas down to just seven players having already had four players sent off, a fight broke out between all members of both teams and the ref had no doubt in showing the red card and sending off all players involved. In total, 36 red cards were shown, which must be some kind of record.

Watch the fun in this 3 minute video, with the main rumble starting just after the 2 minute mark.

Evo Morales, red-carded for kneeing opponent in the cojones

This is must-see footage. Over the weekend President Evo Morales played in a 'friendly' football (soccer if you like) game for the government MAS team versus the opposition MSM party, the party that holds the mayorship of La Paz. After a dirty tackle and some sort of mouthing off by the MSM team, Evo took justice into his own hands, footy field style:

Yep, a nice hard knee straight in the bollocks of the defender. The ref red-carded him and off he went. The match finished 4-4, by the way.

About time we saw this kind of action in a few regional congresses, methinks.

Brazil and the price of overconfidence

Mister Plá (for it is he)

Brazil's loss against Holland (or 'The Netherlands' if you like...you know which country I'm talking about anyway) has left a big dent in the country's footballing pride. It's also left a big dent in the pockets of its retail sector who, utterly confident of progressing to the final and winning the thing (again), have now been left rather overstocked with paraphernalia related to all things footy.

According to this report in O Globo today, Daniel Plá of Brazilian Getulio Vargas Foundation economics bureau says that unsold merchandise including team shirts, flags and those now infamous vuvuzelas amongst other items add up to a total of U$48m around the country. In Rio de Janeiro alone, unsold goods are worth U$4.8m.

Says Plá, "Retail outlets were expecting to sell a lot more green-and-yellow products in the two weeks that were left. Now it's very difficult to sell them, even with generalized 50% discounts on offer......Everybody expect Brazil to reach the final". He also noted that TV sales would suffer.

IKN sez: Y'see, I told you there's always a bright side :-)

Life's easiest jobs, part 15: A bookmaker in Argentina

With just 50 days to go to the beginning of the greatest sporting contest on the planet (hint: USA isn't very good at this sport) we check in on the Mision Mundial dedicated page at Argentina's biggest circulating newspaper, Clarín, to check on a reader's poll. The question asked is:

"Who will be the next World Cup Champion?"

Here's are the results so far:

1. Argentina 51.1% (33107 votes)
2. Spain 19.3% (12506 votes)
3. Brazil 11.9% (7720 votes)
4. Germany 3.1% (2008 votes)
5. Uruguay 2.7% (1757 votes)
6. Chile 2.6% (1712 votes)
7. England 2.6% (1697 votes)
8. Holland 1.5% (943 votes)
9. Italy 1.4% (881 votes)
10. South Africa 1% (673 votes)
11. Portugal 0.6% (394 votes)
12. France 0.4% (251 votes)
13. Other 1.8%(1134 votes)

Just more proof that Argentina lives in its own little world, hermetically sealed off from reality.

Leguis served, the end.

UPDATE: I pie with my little eye....

Understanding South America through soccer; part 562

Legendary football manager Bill Shankley once famously said "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that" so on that subject here's a short note from AP that made its way here via the NYT this morning.

A soccer player who acknowledged killing a heckling fan last year played Tuesday for the Colombian club Atletico Junior. Javier Flórez said heckling fans challenged him to a fight after Atletico Junior lost a Colombian league match July 5. Flórez said he was drunk and pulled a gun. He said a fan tried to take the gun away and it went off several times. He said he did not intend to kill anyone. Flórez was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to three years’ probation.

European soccer players = total whusses. Mojitos served, the end.

Soccer in Brazil: A very lucrative sport

Here's the first part of the AP note, click through for the rest

SAO PAULO – Thieves who spent months tunneling from a rented house to an armored car company made off with nearly $6 million over the weekend as season-ending soccer matches virtually paralyzed the nation, Brazilian authorities said Monday.

The heist was discovered Sunday evening — after the games ended. Officers followed the tunnel from the company's safe some 110 yards (100 meters) underground to a house, Sao Paulo police said in a statement.

Police said the home, abandoned when they arrived, had been occupied for about four months. Its former occupants are considered suspects, but there were no immediate arrests.

Officials with the armored car company — Transnacional Transporte de Valores e Seguranca Patrimonial Ltda — told officers 10 million reals ($5.9 million) were missing, according to the statement.

Globo TV's G1 Web site reported that electricity was cut off to the company's office and some security cameras were not on when the theft happened, but authorities did not immediately confirm that.

The heist occurred on the last weekend of the soccer season, when the league championship and relegation matches had people nationwide glued to their televisions.

A security guard at the building heard a loud noise at about 5 p.m. Sunday, but figured it was from fireworks that sports fans had been setting off throughout the afternoon CONTINUES HERE

South American World Cup Futbol: The results

So much for my prognostic powers (once again) as main bet Argentina got their tushes whupped in Ecuador. However the short priced treble we put fifty virtual dollars on (Colombia, Chile and Brazil to won) came good so we're left with a kitty of $196.98 for the next round way off in September. $196 sounds pretty good until you realize it's taken $300 to get this far, which just goes to prove what I've said all along this series...I suck at betting.

So until the next round, dudettes and dudes.

South America World Cup Futbol: Results and next round

Here we catch up on how we fared over the weekend matches and then look forward to round 14, playing midweek.

First the results. We backed Venezuela to sneak a draw in Bolivia and they went and won, so the small bet failed. As for the "sure thing" of Argentina against Colombia, the bet won all right but the match was tight and nervy and by no means the walk in the park I envisaged...but a win is a win. Finally Peru vs Ecuador went as expected. Peru is an amazingly poor team.

So we have $225.72 to play with in the round coming up midweek. Here are the matches in store:

Ecuador 9/4.............draw 9/4....... Argentina Evens

Colombia 1/3........draw 10/3................. Peru 7/1

Brazil 1/3 ................draw 10/3...........Paraguay 7/1

Chile 4/11..............draw 3/1 ...........Bolivia 15/2

Venezuela 2/1..................draw 9/4............... Uruguay 11/10

Now for the selections:
Argentina will have a tough time in the heights of Quito, but there comes a time when class will out. I watched the Peru/Ecuador match this afternoon and came away unimpressed with Ecuador event though they won it. I'm taking Argentina for three points and virtual classification for South Africa on Wednesday.

Surprise package Venezuela will be out for three points against a Uruguay with its backs firmly against the wall....home passion vs away grit, technique and tradition...tough to call. Brazil looked simply majestic against Uruguay over the weekend and are a good bet to win at home against Paraguay, even at short odds. Chile are also justifiably short odds to bag three points against Bolivia, too. Finally, no-hopers Peru are likely to give Colombia the chance to rack up three vital points.

So the bets this week are;

• A $50 treble, expecting Brazil (1/3), Chile (4/11) and Colombia (1/3) to justify their combined short home odds for a theoretical return of $121.21
  
• $100 on Argentina at evens to beat Ecuador, theoretical return of $200
  

And let's see how we get on.

South American World Cup Futbol Qualifiers

Yes it's back again! Another round in the South American qualifiers is on us this weekend (with the second match in the pair next week) so IKN will be running its usual hypothetical bets on the matches (hypothetical cos I'm too bad at betting to risk real moolah). The last rounds back in March left us with our virtual pot with $141.25, so at least we have some shekels to throw. Here we go with this round's matchups. Prices as usual by UK bookmaker Ladbrokes

Uruguay 15/8 .... ... Draw 11/5. ..... Brazil 5/4

Bolivia 4/9 ....... ..Draw 11/4 ... ...Venezuela 6/1

Argentina 3/10........ ... Draw 10/3..... ..... Colombia 15/2

Paraguay 8/11...... Draw 9/4 ...... .....Chile 7/2

Peru 13/8 ..........Draw 11/5 .....Ecuador 11/8

Now the analysis and selections
This is when the whole qualifiers regime down here gets deadly serious. There's now no margin for error for a lot of these sides if they want to bag the 27 or 28 point that guarantee passage to South Africa next year.

Uruguay versus Brazil will be a cracking match, as will Paraguay vs Chile. All four teams are capable of great football but I'm not backing any of them because there isn't a result, home draw or away, that would truly surprise me.

Venezuela offers value for the draw against Bolivia. Yes we all know what happened to Argentina in La Paz last time, but the Venezuelans have spent the last 10 days up there acclimatizing.

I don't think Argentina will beat Colombia, I think they will murder them, lacerat them, take them apart. Diego's team has looked both good and bad, but now's the time it has to click into top gear to ensure its place in the finals. Odds of 3/10 may look short, but I think they'll be looking great value at half time.

As for the other match, whipping boy Peru will lose to Ecuador and the 11/8 on offer is great value. Peru's fottballers are currently threatening to strike unless its governing body resigns and there's all sorts of shenanigans going on. Also, the match has only sold 7,000 tickets so far as the fans are totally disillusioned. They'll have to fill the stadium with last minute cheapseats but the atmosphere won't be a real home match-

So my bets are:
$10 on Bolivia/Venezuela to draw at 11/4
$80 on Argentina to win at 3/10
$51.25 on Ecuador to win at 11/8

And let's see how we get on.

Wrapping up the World Cup qualifiers

I didn't want to overdose the blog with soccer posts during the working week, so this is the belated post to wrap up what happened with the South American World Cup qualifiers on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Firstly the bets. True to form (and proving that Saturday's 2 from 2 really was the fluke I said it was) we flunked on both wagers. Chile held Uruguay to a 0-0 draw (I bet Chile) and Venezuela whupped Colombia 2-0 (I bet the draw) so the IKN virtual cash hoard is now down to $141 for the next round. And again, a reminder that thse bets are only theoretical and you'd be stone mad to follow me with real money on these (proved in style on Wednesday).

The real shocker was Argentina being hammered 6-1 by Bolivia (see all the goals here). Paraguay's point away from home at Ecuador puts them all but guaranteed for the finals. Brazil surprised nobody by beating Peru 3-0. Peru has managed to lose seven of its 12 matches now. Truly abysmal.

So the next two rounds are due June 6th to June 10th. Hasta la vista, baby.

Bolivia 6, Argentina 1: Here are all the goals

This is not an April Fool's joke.

Bolivia has just beaten Argentina 6-1 in La Paz and here's a 2 1/2 minute youtube with all the goals. To put it into context, this is the equal worst result ever for the Argentina national team. They lost 6-1 to Czechoslovakia back in 1958 at the Sweden World Cup finals. There was also the famous 5-0 defeat at home to Colombia in 1993. In other words, today is one to remember for soccer afficionados. Welcome to international level football management, Diego.

As for Evo Morales, he got on a plane from Qatar early and made a 15 hour flight back to Bolivia specifically so that he could get to the game on time. His reaction, according to this report, can't really be translated but it's still great. "¡Que goleada, papá!"

South American World Cup Futbol Qualifiers: Results and next round picks

Wow, by sheer luck and benign footballing Gods smiling down sweetly, we actually hit two winners out of two this weekend. Thanks to Ecuador sharing the points with Brazil and Chile whupping Peru's tush, Otto's two virtual bets both won and the virtual stack of money now stands at a virtual $281.25. As for you, Boz, "sigue participando" as they say down this way :-)

So the big question is, "How to blow the cash on the midweek fixtures?" Here we go with the Tuesday / Wednesday matches, with prices again supplied by Ladbrokes.

Venezuela 11/8.......... Draw 11/5............. Colombia 8/5

Bolivia 9/2 ..............Draw 5/2........ Argentina 8/15

Ecuador 11/8 ...........Draw 11/5.......... Paraguay 8/5

Chile 11/10 ...........Draw 11/5 ........Uruguay 2/1

Brazil 1/7.......... Draw 5/1 ..........Peru 11/1

Comments and picks: Brazil is unbettable at 1/7, so that match doesn't interest us much. There are some very tough matches to call this fixture, in fact. Bolivia are always three times stronger at home than away thanks to playing at altitude (3,800masl approx) in La Paz. This means that Argentina, good as the team is, is no lock for the points. Ecuador vs Paraguay; I really have no idea on that one so I'm leaving it be.

The best spectacle is likely to be Chile vs Uruguay, a real full-on battle in the making. Uruguay played some great football to beat Paraguay 2-0 over the weekend. Chile has just bagged three points away from home at the embarrassing Peru and has a big home advantage in Santiago. It also has Marcelo Bielsa as the brainpower, a man who will have a whole different strategy planned for the match with the Garruas. So even though Uruguay were very impressive I'm going to pick Chile at 11/10 to beat Uruguay.

For my other pick, a draw is likely in the Venezuela / Colombia matchup and 11/5 looks good to me. Neither team is great and the home advantage should let the slightly weaker Venezuela hold onto a point. That's the plan, anyway. What could possibly go wrong? So my bets are:

$100 on Chile @ 11/10 (theoretical return $210)
$40 on Venezuela Colombia to draw @ 11/5 (theoretical return $128)

Which leaves $141.25 in the cash pot to fight another day. And let's see how we get on.

Pele versus Maradona, round 320

Pele doesn't like Diego Maradona. This is basically because, deep down, Pele knows that Maradona was a better footballer than him. In fact Maradona is the greatest soccer player ever to walk the planet, but that's another story.

Pele is always dissing Maradona, and his usual line of attack is to question Maradona's infamous private life. And hey, it's easy to knock Diego for this as he's a arch-disaster by anyone's standards and probably lucky to be alive after all the crap he's put into his body.

So Pele had another dig at Diego last week, saying this, that and the other and in particular that, "Maradona is a negative example. He was an excellent player, but unfortunately all the world can see what he has done with his life."

So last night Maradona came back with the round-winning quote:

"He (Pele) lost his virginity with a young boy, so I don't know what a good example is."

I love Diego. ¡Que Viva El 10!

One day I'll write the long post I've promised myself I'll write that explains why Diego is the greatest, why Pele was, is and always will be an inferior player and person, and why Maradona is an important figure in the South American psyche.


UPDATE: EG write in the comments section;

"I love him too! Even when I hate him."

Exactly, EG...exactly.

A small victory

To celebrate the winning debut versus Scotland (1-0, international friendly, Maxi Rodriguez scored the goal) of the world's greatest ever player as his national team manager, here's d10s in full Braveheart gear.

Caricature by the wonderfully talented Sebastian Domenech

Today a man was elected..........

........who has the hopes and dreams of an entire nation riding on his shoulders. Here's CNN with the details.

(CNN) -- Football legend Diego Maradona has been officially confirmed as the new coach of the Argentina national side. Julio Grondona, the president of the Argentinian Football Association, made the much-anticipated announcement in Buenos Aires on Tuesday.

"Today is a special day for Argentinian football," said Grondona.

Maradona, 48, will be assisted by former Argentina coach Carlos Bilardo, who will act as general manager. Maradona's first match in charge wil be a friendly against Scotland in Glasgow on November 19. He then faces a tougher task in making sure Argentina qualify for the 2010 World Cup finals from the South American group.

"It's an honor," Maradona said. "It's a dream come true. I'm going to give it my all to make sure yada yada continues here

The biggest news from Argentina this year

Forget the strikes, the protests, the politics the economy. Diego Maradona is the new manager of the Argentina national team.

If you've ever been to Argentina, even for a long weekend, you'll know how big this news really is. He'll be backed by "technical secretary" (aka right hand man) Carlos Bilardo, the same team that brought Argentina its 1986 World Cup success.

That's a smart move by AFA and gives Diego plenty of technical experience to fall back on.

Right now, Argentina is around 6/1 fourth favourite to win the World Cup in 2010. That means Maradona is a 6/1 chance to become the most celebrated Argentine in history...and by a long, long way. Forget Evita Peron, Che Guevara, Borges, and all the others. If Diego brought the World Cup back to his country he'd move past demi-god status and have churches re-named in his honour. If you think I'm joking, you don't know much about Argentina.

Update: On Clarin.com they're running a survey, the question is "Do you agree with the choice of Maradona as the next manager of Argentina?" These Clarin surveys usually get maybe 5,000 votes in the space of 12 hours. Here's how the vote stands after four hours:

Yes 26.2 % (17,605 votes)

No 73.8 % (49,468 votes)

Confirmed: 19% of Peruvians are officially and certifiably insane

Chile player Orellana, about 0.7 seconds after scoring Chile's winning goal against
Argentina last night....have a guess what word he's about to scream?

The following two survey results cannot possibly be a coincidence:

1) President Twobreakfasts García has a job approval rating of 19%

2) 19% of Peruvians think their national football team can make it to the World Cup finals in 2010.

Nineteen percent! In the world they call "bleedin' reality, mate", both of those percentages should be stuck at zero. This can only mean that if you ever walk round Lima the chances are that 19% of the people you meet will be saying "wibble wibble" a lot and having long conversations with dogs and their own shoelaces and things like that.

Be clear; Peru cannot and will not make it to the Finals and anyone who understands the offside law can see that one. Meanwhile, Otto proved again last night that he totally sucks at soccer betting, as none of his three selections came in and his bankroll is back to zip nada nothing. At least Otto isn't mad enough to actually bet real money on his own selections......

South America World Cup futbol Qualifiers: results and next round

Yep, this is "that goal"

Hey, we actually made a profit this time! If you check back at the weekend selections right here you'll see we missed on Argentina-Uruguay draw (Argentina won 2-1), but the main bet came in, Ecuador beating Chile 1-0 (though it could have been 5, as Ecuador was all over the tiring Chile in the last 20 minutes).

So all this means Otto has $118 to throw at the next round (and edged out boz who ended at $115...you still made a profit though, boz :-), and that round is coming up in just 2 or 3 days' time in the midweek fixtures. So without further ado let's see what there is on offer right now, with prices as always from Skybet dot com.

Bolivia 15/8........... draw 9/4 .........Uruguay 5/4
Chile 16/5 ...............draw 9/4......... Argentina 4/5
Brazil 3/10 ..............draw 7/2........... Colombia 8/1
Paraguay 4/9....... draw 11/4............... Peru 6/1
Venezuela 5/4........ draw 11/5 .........Ecuador 15/8

Now my selections

Argentina is a great bet to win away. Due to disciplinary suspensions Chile will be missing three of their key players on Wednesday, and that's enough for me to say Argentina can go to Santiago and bring back three points. There are also two "lambs to slaughter" match-ups this round, with Brazil and Paraguay looking very good for home wins at short odds. I also think Bolivia is value at 15/8 against Uruguay; Bolivia has played well in its last two matches and again has its massive home advantage; ever tried running around for 90 minures at 12,000+ feet above sea level without three months of practice?

So Otto's bets are:

$50 win Argentina at 4/5 for a possible return of $90
$40 win double, Brazil (3/10) and Paraguay (4/9) for a possible return of $75.11
$28 win Bolivia at 15/8 for a possible return of $80.50

And let's see how we get on.

PS: If you want to bet real money on Argentina do it now. I think the bookmakers are asleep tonight and when they realize Chile is a weakened team for Wednesday the Argentina odds will shorten.

South America World Cup futbol Qualifiers

So here we are with another round of South America's religion, as the ten teams slug it out for another three points. As some might remember, Otto once again proved just how much he sucks at betting in the last round and lost all his original $100 hypothetical bankroll. But I'm going to give myself a present and stump another C-note up; this means I have $100 to play with all of a sudden, which is good.

So let's check the pairings this weekend, with prices by UK bookmaker Skybet dot com. If you don't know how the UK oddsmaking system works, check previous posts from that link above:

Bolivia Evens........ draw 2/1 ............Peru 11/4
Argentina 4/11......... draw 3/1......... Uruguay 15/2
Colombia 11/10......... draw 2/1........ Paraguay 12/5
Venezuela 6/1........ draw 5/2............ Brazil 1/2
Ecuador 11/10........ draw 9/4............ Chile 11/5

Now my selections.
I have to say that it's a tough one this round. I'm going to make Ecuador to beat Chile my main bet, as the home advantage of playing in Quito at altitude is significant. However Chile have proved themselves to be a pretty good team this season and it's not my most confident bet, so just $30 there. My second bet is Argentina and Uruguay to draw. Argentina is not firing on all cylinders yet, Uruguay have a good team spirit going and the 3/1 offered is good value, so $15 there.

So to re-cap my hypothetical bets:

Ecuador to win, $30 at 11/10 (potential return $63)
Argentina/Uruguay to draw, $15 at 3/1 (potential return $60)
$55 held untouched in bank.

And let's see how we get on.

South America World Cup futbol Qualifiers: results and next round

First, the result from the weekend's matches, and then the bets for the midweek round eight.

Yet again I prove to the world that I suck at betting. My bets were:

$45.58 on Chile to win (3/1)
$15 on Uruguay to win (11/4)

As for the results, Uruguay won 1-0 and made me money, but Brazil whupped Chile's trasero 3-0 and so I only get paid on my minor bet. This leaves me just $56.25 from my original $100 bankroll (a couple of rounds ago) to play with. Safe to say the bookmakers are not exactly tremblin' with fear about this series of posts.

But hope springs eternal, and here are the round 8 matches that are played tomorrow. Underneath my selections. Prices come from skybet dot com (for those not used to the UK oddsmaking system see the bottom of the previous post here)

Paraguay 4/11.... draw 3/1.... Venezuela 8/1
Brazil 1/9 ....draw 11/2.... Bolivia 20/1
Peru 9/2.... draw 5/2.... Argentina 4/7
Uruguay 8/15.... draw 12/5 ....Ecuador 11/2
Chile 5/6 ....draw 9/4 ....Colombia 3/1

The one compelling bet here is Chile at 5/6. Sure they lost at home over the weekend, but Brazil as a team finally decided to wake up, and when that happens they can make the best team in the world look ordinary. Chile is a good team, be sure about that. Also, Colombia haven't impressed much. I'm going to make this into a win double and add Brazil to win at 1/9. The odds are tiny, of course, but this is as close to an absolute certainty as is possible in futbol. Therefore the bet is:

$56.25 win double on Chile 5/6 and Brazil 1/9

For what it's worth, if the bet comes in my hypothetical bankroll will stand at $114.58.

Game on!