GLASGOW, Nov 18: Diego Maradona is guaranteed a warm reception from the Scotland supporters here on Wednesday but Argentina’s new head coach is promising no favours in return in his first match in charge.
Maradona, 48, was a surprise appointment after Alfio Basile was removed from his job last month after a 1-0 loss to Chile compounded Argentina’s poor start to their World Cup qualifying campaign.
And the man many regard as the world’s greatest ever player insists the match against Scotland will be treated as importantly as a World Cup match as he bids to get his reign off to a winning start.
“A nation like Argentina does not play friendlies,” Maradona said. “We are in the middle of a World Cup campaign and Wednesday night’s match must be treated in the same way.
“My players must fight from the very first minute to win the ball against Scotland. I hope to see a greater performance from the squad than the last match against Chile.”
Argentina are without Lionel Messi and Juan Roman Riquelme but Maradona insists that cannot be an excuse for a sub-standard display from a squad including Javier Mascherano of Liverpool and Carlos Tevez of Manchester United.
“We must not stand there with our arms crossed just because we cannot count on Riquelme nor Messi,” Maradona added. “We must search for variety, options, and we have them. Even without them, we will play for victory against Scotland.”
Wednesday night’s match takes place at Hampden, a stadium which will hold special memories for Maradona, as it was where the midfield maestro scored his first international goal over 29 years ago.
The 18-year-old starred as then World Champions Argentina defeated Scotland 3-1 on June 2, 1979 where he faced a certain George Burley, now the Scotland manager.
Argentinian football as a whole is returning to its roots for the match against Scotland. Alexander Watson Hutton, widely acknowledged as the founding father of Argentinian football, was born just two miles from Hampden Park in Glasgow.
He helped found the Argentine Association Football League in 1891, South America's first proper national football association and the eighth oldest in the world.
The first Argentinian league champions were St Andrews Scotch Athletic Club, a team made up entirely of Scots, as was the team that they pipped to the title, Old Caledonians.
The legacy of Scots emigres on Argentinian football continues to this day. In the 1986 World Cup final, the scorer of the first goal in Argentina’s 3-2 win against West Germany was Jose Luis Brown, direct descendant of a Scot who set sail for Buenos Aires in 1825.
Brown is now tipped to become one of Maradona’s new coaching assistants.
And Carlos Javier MacAllister, whose surname and ginger-hair betray his
Scottish roots, was a left-back who helped Argentina reach the 1994 World Cup finals.
Maradona also holds a special place in the hearts of the Tartan Army after his two goals helped eliminate arch-rivals England at the quarter-final stage of the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.
A member of the England team that played that day, Terry Butcher, is now the assistant manager of Scotland, and he insists he still hasn’t forgiven the Argentine for his infamous “hand of God” goal in the match. “I’ll never forgive him,” Butcher said. “It’s not nice when you lose a World Cup quarter-final under those circumstances. But that was 22 years ago.”
Scotland’s chances of causing a shock in Maradona’s first game in charge have been hit by the loss of six players to injury including first-choice goalkeeper, Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher and striker Kenny Miller.
Fletcher’s absence ensures that Rangers midfielder Barry Ferguson, who has not played for his country in a year because of ankle problems, returns as captain.—AFP