(ANSA) – ROME, Dec 02 – “We got the chance to face Lionel Messi, the best player in the world, in a World Cup knockout match, and it sounds like a dream to us. But let’s not waste it now.” This was stated by Graham Arnold, coach of Australia, who, in view of tomorrow’s match against Argentina, has banned his players from social media since the day of the round of 16, “because they must not be distracted.”
But for him, Arnold, facing Argentina and the best soccer player in the world, is nothing new: he was on the field, with Australia’s No. 9 jersey, in a double-playoff for a place in USA ’94 in which in November 1993 the national team played The Australian, after being eliminated, in front of the Argentine national team, whose number 10 was Diego Maradona. Now he will experience feelings of this kind as a coach and against Messi, the heir to the “Pep de Oro”. “But I know how Argentina fights – says Arnold -, it already did at the Tokyo Games, when I led the Olympic team and it ended 2-0 for us. After all, even tomorrow there will be yellow shirts against those blue and white stripes. For him, even passing the group stage of the World Cup was nothing new: in 2006, in Germany, he was Guus Hiddink’s assistant. “And from him, he says, I learned more in one year than if I had worked on my own for ten years: his attention to every detail was incredible.” (Dealing).
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