Bob Koep
OBE Blog
Remember Argentina, the overpowering junior team that captured the U-20 World Cup last year at the BMO Field in Toronto.
It was a climax of a terriffic tournament across Canada and the CSA picked up the bragging rights of having produced the highest ever attendance figures for that biannual world tournament.
But what happened now?
In the qualifying tournament for the next junior World Cup to be staged Sept 25 to Oct 16 in Egypt, Argentina bombed out and will miss the championship proper for the first time since 1987.
And all that comes when the South American powerhouse seemed to be on a permanent roll.
Argentina is a recond six times junior world champion and coached by Sergio Battista, the country’s under 23-team just last summer picked up the Olympic soccer gold medal.
But this time the juniors just couldn’t get into gear and managed to win but one lone game out of nine in the tournament.
That embarrassing record left them out of the race and overall winner Brazil is now leading the South American contingent to Egypt along with runner up Paraguay and then Uruguay and Venezuela.
The qualifying took place in Venezuela and might explain the good fortunes of the hosts as Venezuela rarely goes anywhere in international play.
But recently they have done well in World Cup play and its lengthy drought may be over.
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