Monthly Archives: May 2011

Only last July Grondona’s administration had found itself under serious threat with the perennial cheerleaders Olé openly calling for massive changes. Then, once a pliable and, crucially, not financially secure manager was installed, they looked to deflect attention away from the urgent reform needed by continually flogging the idea of Messi as the Messiah, the panacea to all our ills, footballing, spiritual, economic. They adopted Barcelona’s Make Messi Happy policy but altered it ingeniously to Messi IS Happy So You Should Be, Too. And by September, after the Spain win, they clearly felt strong enough to chastise Mascherano and the rest of the players, referring to the scandalous nature of the qualifying campaign and the humiliating fifth act in South Africa. Chief FPT stooge and Grondona ally Marcelo Araujo identified Maradona and Mascherano as Argieball’s most vicious powermongers, ruthlessly thwarting the meek visionaries of the AFA, who had only wanted to put mints on their pillows in Pretoria. The captain was but a brief candle next to the AFA’s eternal flame; a spindly, pitiful urchin of dubious origin compared with the heroic, muscular achievements of the bearded founding fathers. There had been a revolution from above: ‘Messi is the new boss of the AFA,’ Araujo declared. Continue reading →