Basile Survives Despite Boca’s Failure to Qualify For Copa 2010

By: Brett | December 1st, 2009

sanlorenzoboca

San Lorenzo 3-0 Boca

It’s official. Boca Juniors, the second most successful club in the fifty year history of the Copa Libertadores won’t be there in 2010. Instead, they, along with River Plate and the most successful team in Copa history, Independiente, will have to settle for watching it on telly with the rest of us.

Los Xenienes’ ever so slim hopes of qualifying for the 2010 Copa Libertadores were torn apart on Sunday with a humiliating defeat to crosstown rivals San Lorenzo at the Pedro Bidegain Stadium. Diego Simeone’s men dominated from start to finish and, in the end, only some Pato heroics in goal allowed us to save some face.

Martin Palermo, guilty of missing an absolute gimme early on, claimed that him scoring would have “changed the game.” Ask any of the traveling Boca fans in attendance and they would no doubt scoff at this suggestion. Disgusted at yet another insipid performance in what has been a quite embarrassing season, by matches end the Boca section of the crowd had completely turned on coach Alfio Basile and his players, hurling abuse their way and scaring them into bidding a fairly hasty farewell from the pitch the very moment referee Hector Baldassi blew the fulltime whistle.

The captain went on to say that the club was already “thinking about next year”, and that the last three games of the season will be used to discover who deserves to retain a place in the first team and who needs to continue their footballing journey elsewhere. Fair enough, too. The powers that be have also stated publicly that they will seek to revitalize the group next January with the arrival of four “high-ranking reinforcements.”

In the coming weeks I will take a look at the current squad and give my views on who should stay and who should go, but for today I want to take a look at the man in charge, Alfio Basile.

Basile returned to Boca first his second stint in charge on July 1 this year, taking over from Carlos Ischia. Sadly, the team hasn’t even come close to reaching the heights if success experienced during his first stint in charge back in 2005, when, in just over a year, the man they call ‘Coco’ delivered two Recopa Sudamericana’s, a Copa Sudamericana, and Apertura and Clausura titles. He then left, taking charge of the national team.

Six wins and five draws from sixteen matches has Boca currently sitting in 11th spot. Whilst admitting that the squad needs some “retooling”, Boca Vice President, Jose Beraldi, has said that Basile keeping his job has “never” been in doubt. Yeah, right. After the 3-2 loss at home to Godoy Cruz earlier this campaign, Basile offered up his resignation, only to decide against it after a quiet chat with Carlos Bianchi and Juan Riquelme.

On the footballing side, his team selections have at times, been puzzling to say the least. His apparent happiness to let the tremendously talented Lucas Viatri and Pablo Mouche (when fit) rot away on the bench this season, has frustrated this blogger no end. Not only that, but his persistence with a 4-4-2, which resembles more of a 4-4-1-1, with Nico Gaitan in support of lone striker Palermo, has appeared overly defensive for a team with the attacking talent we possess. I thought the penny may have dropped last week when, pairing Pablo Mouche with Palermo and moving Nico back to right midfield, we dismantled an admittedly woeful Gimnasia La Plata side 4-0. But, alas, this week it was back to business as usual.

But, at the end of the day, Basile is not the real problem. Given time and support, I feel that Basile can once again guide us back to the top of Argentine football. He has a proven track record in domestic football, and more importantly, he’s better than any of the possible alternatives.

Boca’s issues run deeper. Internal infighting seems to be burying this proud club. Beraldi himself said, “No one knows why this (squad) does not work, but we all want to fix it. What is certain is that the first solution must be internal Boca. We must forget politics.” Those in the backroom need to put aside their differences for the sake of this mighty football club because, if they don’t, it won’t just be next years Copa Libertadores we’ll be missing out on.

Here are the match highlights if you want to see them…you’re a brave soul if you do.