Soccer SuperFans

By: Gabriel Almada, Waterloo

The final countdown... and the starting eleven
 
With only one day until Argentina's first game in the World Cup against Nigeria, many wonder what is coach Diego Maradona going to do. Particularly, who are going to be the starting 11 that will come out of his feeble mind.
 
Will he play with three in the back? Will he go for the now traditional 4-4-2 (oh, those times in which we used to play with three forwards...). The biggest problem is that Maradona has many -and very good- forwards to send to the pitch, and that will condition his tactics.
 
I actually think that Maradona will play a hybrid 3-1-3-1-2, or a 4-3-1-2 depending
on where Jonás Gutiérrez (no doubts he's a starter) stays. Romero will be the goalkeeper, there are no doubts about that. Then I believe it's going to be Gutiérrez as a right back, then Demichelis and Samuel and Heinze on the left. Mascherano, Verón and Di María will be the midfielders, and Messi will play just in front of them. Up front, I believe Higuaín will play alongside Carlos Tévez, whom I think earned his spot after a very impressive last month, both in practices and friendly matches.
 
Is it wise to play against Nigeria with only three in the back? Yes, what we need to make sure is that we populate the midfield, because that's the strongest section of our next opponents. If we take control of the midfield fairly quickly, Argentina will head towards a comfortable win.
 
So, to summarize, I will list the starting line-up the same way they would say it in the radio back in Argentina:
 
Romero; Demichelis, Samuel and Heinze; Jonás Gutiérrez; Verón, Mascherano and Di María; Messi; Higuaín and Tevez.
 
I wonder how many I will guess right!