Tucuman Rising E6: Motivational Juggling for Beginners
Turdgate aside, I’m relatively content when I step off the team coach at the Jose Fierro and make my way to the comfort of my office. Whilst I’m angry at the Defensores loss, ultimately we are performing well above expectations for a side that was relegation fodder when I stumbled through the door. As I enter the office, I’m confused by the sight of clothes strewn everywhere along with a scrawled message on the wall. At which point I realise I may have forgotten to call Consuela in a couple of weeks and I may have missed her brother’s wedding. I sit amongst my belongings and try to call her, but she sends me to voicemail. I would care, but there is a home game against Platense to consider.
They are 11th in the table and aside from being a side that are generally a regen hotspot, they worry me due to their propensity to score goals. I consider the away formation but fuck it, we are at home and I’m damned if I do anything that I believe Craig Levein would do in a similar situation. That mad hairy bastard is more or less the antithesis of ‘What Would Jesus Do?’.
Just when I’m set for the game, I receive news from Peru. Sporting Cristal have bid £450,000 for Christian Colusso. It’s a large bid for someone who resembles Nathan Dyer with a worse first touch, but he’s been key to my recent good form. I send a fax to Peru, and a marmalade sandwich by post, asking for 525k and cross my fingers toes and eyes. It makes my selection for the Platense match relatively simple as I can’t really focus on my tactics board with one eye in Cork and the other in York.
We are indebted to Navarro for keeping it 0–0 at half-time, as he makes 3 good saves to repel Platense. In terms of attacking prowess, we might as well be trying to play Snooker with a lollystick — we look blunt, and incapable of putting any regular pressure on their goal. I tweak thing at halftime to push players up the park and we go into the second half with a far more attacking outlook.
Amazingly, this works. On the hour mark a shot from Colusso is parried out to Cabrol, and he finishes with the aplomb of Ken Dodd embracing a cheap laugh. Rather than reverting, I persist with the attacking formation and we push forwards for a second. Colusso and Guillermo go close but the game finishes 1–0
I’m delighted with the boys after one of our most professional performances of the season. The change in tactic paid dividends and whilst the Colusso transfer saga may be an unforeseen issue, moving into this formation might eliminate the issues that causes. We head to El Carne Gordo — a spinoff of our usual haunt and takeover the restaurant and bar. I spot Consuela at the bar and I approach her, but I’m greeted with something that sounds like a curse on my family and a glass of red in the face.
That win has taken us to the dizzy heights of 5th in the table, and whilst looking down the table might give us a nosebleed, the only way we can look is up as we face Quilmes away next. They are top of the table and easily the best team in the league. Apart from that, it’s another 2000km round trip to Buenos Aries province. Who would have thought that Argentine provincial football would be so inconvenient.
I’m busy doing tactical analysis in the office when I get a surprise phone-call from our accountancy team. When I say surprise, I mean surprise on the same level as a doctor calling to say “We found an abnormality on your scan”. They tell me that Colusso has to be sold as our financial situation is fairly awful - so with a heavy heart I agree to sell Christian to the Peruvians. What I didn’t appreciate was that this deal would be immediate- which is mildly annoying. The Argentine transfer window is more complex than the Duckworth/Lewis method crossed with Schroedingers Cat.
We wave Christan off at the airport as we fly down to Quilmes. He was a good lad, with a stunning turn of pace. We revert to the away formation and pray for solidity — but this looks to be a stiff test of our mettle. I bring out the Champu chant, Navarro sings Con Te Partiro and Linton performs a motivational juggling routine that brings a tear to my eye. God knows what would have happened if he’s remembered his balls.
For a change, we make a fast start. After we win a free-kick midway inside their half, Cabrol swings a dangerous ball into the area and Guillermo meets it with a bullet header to put us 1–0 up. We continue the first half in the ascendency and hit the woodwork 3 times before Guillermo works more space and hits the bottom corner to make it 2–0 after 26 minutes. It gets even better when Barreto meets a ‘Begbie’ Pisonero cross and we are 3–0 up at halftime, wondering who has kidnapped the Quilmes team and whether or not we can tell them the ransom won’t be paid.
Hans and Milton corner me at half time, to say that they’ve had word from the Ultras that they’ve got tables booked in the centre of Quilmes and Consuela’s slightly more unhinged twin sister Carmen has joined them. I head over to the Ultras section and as is tradition, spend the second half getting wasted with them rather than focusing on the training-match-esque second stanza. It’s a 3–0 win against the league leaders and we agree in the changing rooms that it’s no holds barred out on the town tonight.
It’s an incredible night. we’re now up to 4th in the table but we party like league leaders. We make acquaintance with a gangster who brings his pet Panther into a nightclub, and he spends the night buying bottles of Vodka for us and telling us about his cut-short football career with Quilmes. Apparently he was set for stardom when he went to fetch a football from the training ground after kicking it over a wall and was hit by a blimp. I call bullshit and we leave the club, and when I say me I mean myself and Carmen, who is infinitely better than her sister in every way. We manage to ice the cake the following morning by getting Beavis taken away for a cavity search after we stash several bags of baking powder in his socks. Poor bastard was so excited at being taller he didn’t consider why he was.
Our win against the league leaders means that there’s a new team at the summit of the Primera B. And wouldn’t you know it — now-1st placed Gimnasia y Esgrima de Jujuy are the next visitors to the Jose Fierro. They manage to have the rare combination of being able to score goals, but also not concede any. But so did Quilmes and we dispensed with them like yesterday’s jam.
My buildup to the game is harmed when Guillermo pulls a muscle in training and is barely at 70% on game day. As injuries go, it’s very much a two sided coin much like many coins. It’s the one position that we can afford an injury as I push El Gigolo up front and Pico plays behind him. But Guillermo has been a revelation up front and I’m dreading the day I get a big bid for him. We continue with the away formation after the success vs Quilmes and I tell the dressing room that I want to dominate in every department in this game.
We have a 347th penalty shout of the season turned down in the 10th minute which I commemorate by lighting Beavis’ medical supplies bag on fire in the technical area. This backfires 2 minutes later as a basic groin injury to Barreto can’t be treated and he has to withdraw.
We are dominating play by the 25th minute and a glorious passing move ends with Dolgetta being shoved over in the penalty area. When a penalty isn’t given on this occasion, I send Milton down the tunnel with the still smouldering bag and he dumps it in the referee’s room. Pico has a couple of chances, both saved and it’s 0–0 at half time. It’s frustrating, but when the Referee and his assistants reemerge from the tunnel for the second half drenched due to the sprinkler system going off — I’m cheered massively.
The Gimnasia keeper is genuinely very good. Hernan Castellano has the makings of a good level European keeper and he shows it straight away with another save from Cabrol. But 30 seconds later after sustained pressure since the start of the half, El Gigolo slots into the far corner after good play by Demichelis and we’re 1–0 up. This seems to send us back into our shell and we confirm that the referee, Mr Esteban Wonderio is in fact blind when he completely misses Begbie Pisonaro cutting a opposition player in two in the area nowhere near the ball. As the ball dribbles out the box, it’s crossed in and they hit the post.
I withdraw El Gigolo in response to these developments and stick Moreno up front and Mario on the wing. I pat him on the shoulder and tell him to drive this crazy Tucuman train home with 25 minutes to go. He does just that, and we play some of the most boring football ever witnessed to see the game out. Which I give not one fuck about.
The tannoy announcer at the end shouts the names of our lineup as we run to the Ultras at the end of the game. He also announces that we are now just 5 points off the top of the table with 4 games left in the Clausura — and at this news the place goes crazy. We were meant to be the cannon fodder of the league, but this team has come together and played fantastically well of late. After another sensational carpark BBQ with an afterparty in the VIP section of “El Pezón Resbaladizo” — I comandeer a rickshaw and cycle home. Or Iwould if i knew where I was going. I end up hopping into El Parque and sleeping by the lake in the middle.
Destitution aside, we’ve really hit our stride. While Barreto is out for a month and Mancuso is now suspended our next away trip is to a side in the lower reaches of the table: Gimnasia y Esgrima de Concepción del Uruguay. I challenge myself to remember that name and by the time I do, we’re on the Uruguayan Border ready to face our lowly opponents. Guillermo comes back in with Dolgetta dropping back into the AM role. I gamble by pushing the excellent Rodriguez back to DM and play two new wingers in Moreno (on his favoured right) and Andres Perez, whom I had forgotten existed.
Its a snoozefest up until the 28th minute when we create two chances.Both fall to Guillermo and on both occasions his headers are saved by the keeper. As the half goes on, Navarro is forced into action three times before we nearly take the lead right on the stroke of half time when El Gigolo heads wide. It doesn’t disguise how mediocre we’ve been and I decide to attack in the second half by switching to the home formation.
It remains a war of attrition however, and interspersed with periods of dogged midfield warfare chances fall to both sides.Navarro is having a great game as is the opposition keeper, who appears to be called Ocelot. We push further and further forwards and Pico and Dolgetta push up beside Guillermo as we search for an elusive goal. Guillermo nearly does it in the 89th minute as does Rodriguez in the 92nd, but the Ocelot foils us and its an underwhelming two points dropped at the Uruguayan border.
I’m irritated by this result and I tell the players as much in the dressing room. I don’t understand the transfer window so I don’t know when I can get reinforcements, and I don’t even know who’s available. I resolve to look when we get back to the Jose Fierro after a quick trip to Carmen’s to get her scouting opinions, which she takes most of the night to summarise. Its early morning when I wake up and peruse the table with a coffee in the kitchenette in her apartment. We’re certainly looking in far better shape than we were — maybe one season away from promotion with some good fortune.
Because if it takes longer than that, I’m pretty sure I’ll need sectioning.
