Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez, Sergio Agüero, Martín Palermo, Diego Milito and Gonzalo Higuaín. Six of the 23 footballers in the argentine national team what Diego Maradona led to South Africa World Cup 2010 They were pure forwards. There were also offensive players on the roster such as Angel Di Maria y Javier Pastore. However, one of them could have left his place to a legend, who was tempted to play in that World Cup with 43 yearswith which he would have broken the longevity record in the ecumenical event, which the Cameroonian still holds Roger Milla (42 years and 39 days).
The last image of Claudio Paul Caniggia in the albiceleste it had been unworthy of his career. He Son of the Wind He was the prototype of the National Team player, because in no club did he perform like when he defended his country’s jersey. However, even though Marcelo Bielsa He was summoned for Korea-Japan 2002 as a replacement due to his level in the Glasgow Rangers of Scotland, did not add minutes in the Asian event and was sent off while on the substitute bench in the draw against Sweden that decreed the elimination of the Argentine team, which arrived as a candidate and starred in one of the most resounding disappointments in history.
In 2005, after a stint at Wembley FC of EnglandCaniggia decided to retire. But five years later (and still today, at 59 years old) he maintained his line, he trained regularly; He was an athlete without training. World runner-up in Italia 90his lineage was a temptation, although the boots that allowed him to fly remained hanging in the locker room.
And the temptation, beyond the constellation of forwards available, was greater for those who held the reins of the Ezeiza property. The coach of the Argentine team was his former partner Diego Maradona. And as Director of Selections he was Carlos Salvador Bilardohis former coach. Two of the people who knew their potential the most and best.
The champion duo in Mexico 86 was anointed, in the company of Humberto Grondonaso that Argentina could recover the epic ahead of the qualification for South Africa. “When he leaves Coco Basile of the selection, My old man (Julio Humberto Grondona, then president of the AFA) told me that he dreamed of entering the Ezeiza property with Diegobut it had to be with me and Bilardo as Director of National Teams. First, Bilardo was summoned to my dad’s house in Puerto Madero and he said yes, but if Diego wanted to. And then came Maradona in that famous Mini Cooper scene. When dad proposed to him to be the coach of the National Team, he was excited, he grabbed his arm tightly. He said yes right away”, evokes Infobae the counselor and analyst, champion of the 2013 Sub 17 and 2015 Sub 20 South American Championships with the youth teams.
The appointment was in November 2008. The road to the World Cup offered turbulence: that 2-1 victory against Peru under a biblical flood, with the miraculous goal of Martin Palermowas the climax of tension. And, in the middle, a captivating idea, to the point that it surprised the very focus of the offer.
The leading voice was Bilardo, in charge of the seduction strategy so that Caniggia would become a kind of ace on Maradona’s board, the silver bullet, the blow with the resume rolled up in the heads of the rivals.
“In 2009 Bilardo came to talk to me with the proposal of going to South Africa. I hadn’t played for 4 and a half years, but I trained and was physically well. He knew it. He asked me to come play in Argentina, I never knew that the club was Arsenal“, revealed Dogs in an interview with Ernesto Cherquis Bialo for Infobae.
“He proposed me a special job on the Ezeiza property. I regret having said no. I should have insisted more. Today I blame myself for that refusal. That first meeting was in October, but if someone in November or December came and insisted on me, I was sure I would go,” the former attacker turned representative added in retrospect (he has important names in his portfolio, such as Ian Subiabrefrom River Plate).
In a note with Fox SportsHe even added acting to that sequence. “He stops Nosehe tells me ‘hello, what are you doing Cani, how are you doing?’. It will have been five minutes, or not even five minutes. And he said to me: ‘Why don’t you go back to football?’ ‘But Carlos, I’m almost 43 years old, I haven’t played in four and a half years,’ I responded. And he told me ‘don’t worry, you can play. Go back to football, but come to Argentina to play for six months,’” he described the scene,
“At first I said ‘what are you saying?’. Then I fell. And I told him ‘I don’t know, I’m not sure I want to go back’. ‘I know that you can, you have to play for an Argentine team again for six months,'” was the letter with which the Doctor insisted. The club, of course, was not just another one. It was Arsenal, the home of the Grondona family, a bridge to the dream. Crazy, perhaps, but a dream nonetheless. And with the support of Caniggia’s history to guide a notable crop of young people; many of them U20 world champions in 2005 and 2007.
“Over time I regretted it, it would have been an incredible challenge. He wanted me to play the last half hour, at 43 years old.. If they told me differently it would have been different. They should have been more decisive. He would have been the only guy to have played with Messi and Maradona. “It would have been spectacular,” concluded Claudio Paul. Messi-Caniggia, like Maradona-Caniggia before. A duo that could have been or, rather, that should have been in that feverish and intense adventure with Fluff at the helm at South Africa 2010.
