Uruguay vs Argentina – The Winner Takes It All…

…The loser has to fall. Or go into a two-legged playoff against either Costa Rica or Honduras, but that doesn’t really fit into an ABBA lyric too well now does it?

After Argentina’s thrilling last-gasp winner against Peru last weekend and Uruguay’s equally priceless win in Quito, also earned in the last minute, the final automatic slot for South American qualification to the World Cup 2010 comes down to one game – Uruguay vs Argentina at the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo. This is going to be huge.

All throughout Argentina’s shambles of a qualifying campaign I have repeated and repeated and repeated that the last thing la seleccion would want is to go to Montevideo in the final group game having to get a result to qualify. But here we are.

The rivalry between the two neighbours is intense not just for football reasons (when Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2 in the 1930 World Cup final Argentine rioters stoned Uruguay’s embassy), but also on regional grounds. People in Argentina still jokingly refer to Uruguay as ‘un barrio de Buenos Aires’ – no more than a district of their own sprawling capital city, and considering Buenos Aires is over four times as populous as the whole of Uruguay it is easy to see why. Uruguayans don’t take too kindly to this patronising air and thus are the lines of emnity drawn.

In fact it is not only Uruguayans that want Uruguay to beat Argentina tonight. In Spain, 68% of voters in a poll held by El Mundo want Uruguay to qualify ahead of Diego Maradona’s side. Globoesporte in Brazil claims that Uruguay have “the support of the majority of Brazilians.” And in Chile, 42% of En La Cuarta readers want their own, already qualified national team to lose to Ecuador “just to annoy Argentina.” If Ecuador and Uruguay both win tonight, Argentina are out of the World Cup altogether.

We need to talk about Leo

In the buildup to tonight’s game, a lot of talk in Argentina has centred on one Lionel Messi. The expected successor to Cristiano Ronaldo’s World Player of the Year crown, Messi is not too popular in his homeland right now and stands accused of being a bit like Two-Face, the character from the Batman movie.

Bright and brilliant for FC Barcelona, Messi has been subdued and stony-faced when it comes to representing the national team of late, and many Argentine supporters have turned on him as the pressure derived from the nation’s mishandled qualifying campaign has mounted. A radio talk host from Barcelona even had to be hauled onto Argentine national TV to defend the man. “If they don’t like him there he can come and play in Sweden,” Zlatan Ibrahimovic offered, wading into the debate at a recent press conference.

On Saturday, Martin Palermo was the hero for Argentina, Diego Forlan for Uruguay. Is tonight the turn of Lionel Messi? For Argentinians, if ever Messi wanted to show he is the best player in the world the time is now.

Team selection

One thing must also be remembered in all this. Argentina are in a right mess. Beating Peru provided euphoria to the whole nation, but this was a Peruvian team that had lost every single away game in World Cup qualifying. A team in dire straits. As majestic and cathartic as it was, that Argentina needed a stoppage time winner to beat them is also a sad indictment on just how low one of the finest international sides in the world has slumped under Maradona.

Uruguay are expected to go with the same side that won in Quito, albeit with a more attacking 3-5-2 instead of a 5-3-2, like so:

N. Muslera

D. Lugano (c) — M. Caceres —- A. Scotti

M. Pereira —- D. Perez —- W. Gargano —- J. Rodriguez —- A. Pereira

L. Suarez —- D. Forlan

While Argentina will line up as follows:

S. Romero

N. Otamendi — R. Schiavi — M. Demichelis — G. Heinze

J. Gutiérrez — J. Mascherano (c) — J.S. Verón — A. Di María

L. Messi — G. Higuaín

My instinct sees this game going one of two ways. Either

1) Argentina are going to continue their tactical and motivational ineptitude under Maradona and buckle under the high-octane intensity of a packed Centenario stadium, meekly losing 3-1 and having to go through the playoffs, or

2) Tonight is the redemption of Lionel Messi, the day he revitalises his career in an Argentina team shirt and wins over the hearts and minds of a nation by banging in a hat-trick and proving he really is the best in the world. Argentina go to South Africa 1-3.

What are your predictions? Feel free to leave your comments and observations throughout the match, I will be checking in as the action unfolds. I cannot wait!

Argentina, Football in Latin America, Lionel Messi, Maradona, Uruguay, World Cup 2010