Riquelme Doubtful Against Uruguay

If you start looking at the way Alfio Basile is setting up his team on the pitch, Juan Román Riquelme is not in his plans for Saturday´s crucial match against Uruguay at the Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires. In Wednesday´s practice, Basile set up a 3-4-3 scheme without a midpoint in his scheme.

The Argentine media was talking about everything from a possible fallout with Basile to problems at his club as well as nagging injuries that have hampered his play. The first option would mean that the crisis at the national team level is much greater than anticipated and that it should be time for Basile to step down. It would seem like Uruguay come in at the ideal time to give Argentina a loss and put them in an even more complicated position.

It seems like Alfio Basile is looking to put his tactical eggs in one basket and allowing Riquelme to rest for their huge showdown in Santiago against a Chile side that is trying to get a grip on their actual situation and what better way to do than be beating Argentina for the first time ever. His metatarsal injury is a huge factor in his level of play decreasing and Boca going down in the process.

Speaking of Boca, his sights aren´t just on the national team. With less than ten days to go before another edition of the Argentine Superclásico, Boca look to stay alive in the title hunt. After three straight losses (two of them at home) they now find themselves eight points from leaders San Lorenzo. This has caused the team to have several fissures as far as unity is concerned and Riquelme once again appeared at the epicenter. His conflict with teammate and Paraguayan international Julio Césr Cáceres escalated to a point in which club president Pedro Pompilio had to intervene and ended up supporting Riquelme after he made comments to the media saying that being called up by the national team ¨was a greater joy than to play for Boca.¨

After the verbal scuffle, Cáceres ended up saying that he would like to leave if he ¨was to be a bother¨ to the club. Right now, the bother (or the question) seems to be that Riquelme should or shouldn´t rest. If Basile takes this game against Uruguay too lightly the repercussions would be great, starting with his job. The fans are already mounting against him and in a country like Argentina, te pressure can be just as great, even moreso, as there are 40 million head coaches for the Albiceleste there. So based on his preparations, his omissions and his tactical changes he could be falling in Uruguay´s hands.

*** Check out the Match Commentary for Argentina/ Uruguay on Saturday. Please join in the commentary and gives us your opinion of the match***