AL AIRE EN "ZONA INTERNACIONAL" POR TDW RADIO DE MÉXICO OPINANDO SOBRE EL COMIENZO DEL CAMPEONATO ARGENTINO

LA CANDELA: BARCELONA´S ARGENTINE MESSI FACTORY

Artículo publicado en el sitio Sabotage Times el 11 de enero de 2012.
Link: http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/la-candela-barcelonas-argentine-messi-factory/


Introducing La Candela and the football project that produced Barcelona's three-time Ballon d'Or winner, Lionel Messi...

La Candela stands in the district of San Justo, forty minutes outside of Buenos Aires. It’s steeped in football history; the place some of game’s greatest ever players learned their trade. It was here that Barcelona discovered Lionel Messi.

Alberto J. Armando, a visionary former Boca Juniors president, bought this 50,173 square metre patch in 1963. He created football pitches for lower-league clubs to train on, and a club house for their players to get changed in. Boca Juniors coach Alfredo Di stéfano used La Candela in the 60’s, as did Diego Maradona in 1981 – the year he won the championship with a memorable Xeneizes team.

In the 90s, Boca stopped using La Candela and the property was rented out. The facilities soon fell into disrepair, and were ultimately abandoned. 
In 2004, Jorge Raffo, who played at Boca Juniors and was familiar with La Candela in its heyday, decided to buy the property. Raffo had recently created CEFAR (Footballers High Performance Training Centre) and needed a place to work from. The facilities and the mystique of La Candela were perfect.

CEFAR was the first private centre in Argentina to specialise in high-performance training for footballers. Today, professional players train at La Candela every day, dreaming of being picked up by a big club. It’s also regularly used by international and club teams from around the world for pre-season training.

In 2007, with the aim of recruiting a young Lionel Messis, FC Barcelona and CEFAR signed an agreement.
Raffo is the project’s sports director, working with roughly 200 boys between the ages of 12 and 16. “This points to different objectives”, Raffo says. “The first and most important, is to change the working methods of the teams here. In a land of great talents, if you add a European methodology and organization, we can achieve more Messis”.

His vision should encourage Argentinian clubs to develop their young talent to ensure they are not uprooted at a young age like Messi. The objective is clear: players remain in Argentina until they are completely ready to leave for Europe.“No player will leave La Candela before he is 17”, Raffo says on CEFAR´S official website.

Barcelona’s latest superstar to emerge from the project is Maximiliano Rolon. He arrived at Barcelona two years ago, still just 15. Rolon is a skilful striker that can also play on both flanks. Barcelona see Rolon as the natural successor to Villa, Alexis Sanchez or Pedro.

It was recently announced that CEFAR would not continue in 2012, folding for economical reasons. It has emerged that the Catalan club are unwilling to continue their investment in Argentina. Sandro Rosell, Barcelona´s president, and his board don’t consider it profitable enough – despite Rosell being impressed with La Candela when he visited the facilities during the Copa America last July.

In 2007, Barcelona’s then president, Joan Laporta, committed to invest €7.5m by 2011 in Club Atlético Luján to take over the training of players between 12 and 16 years old, both in sport and education.

“We want to replicate this model in other countries that we know are producing good football and good footballers”, Laporta said. “Magnificent examples are Brazil and Mexico. CEFAR´s methodology is the same we have in La Masia. All project managers are inspired by that methodology and they are in permanent contact with the directors of La Masia”.

Txiki Beguirtain, FC Barcelona´s sports director during Laporta´s presidency added: “We chose the CEFAR because I liked Jorge Raffo, his dedication, his past and his discretion. And the facilities are fantastic. I saw very few places as good as the CEFAR in the world”.

So far Barcelona have invested only half of what was agreed. Since Rosell´s became president, the amount of children at La Candela was reduced from 48 to 30, and from 27 to 18 per players for each of the eight templates. 
But there are more big clubs interested in keeping the best players and continuing with the project – namely, Boca Juniors.

Last week, Daniel Angelici became the new Boca president, announcing the arrival of a new football coordinator: Jorge Raffo. He also stated the club will go back to train at La Candela.
There has been no announcement from Barcelona on whether or not they will continue to support the project.

HABLANDO SOBRE RIVER PLATE EN LA B NACIONAL CON LOS COLEGAS DE ESTADIO W DE MÉXICO

A CITY IN DISGUISE: THE PARANÁ COSTUME PARTY

Artículo publicado en el sitio Sabotage Times el 3 de septiembre de 2011.
Link: http://www.sabotagetimes.com/travel/a-city-in-disguise-the-parana-costume-party/


In 1999 one hundred and fifty people turned up to a fancy dress party. A decade later fifty thousand Batmans, Michael Jacksons and smurfs flock to the annual Paraná Costume Party in Argentina.

Once upon a time there was a place where everything could happen” was the theme for the 2011 Costume Party (La Fiesta de Disfraces), the massive event held for thirteen years in the city of Parana, Entre Rios, Argentina. All started in 1999 as a party for a group of friends, but some years later, it gathering crowds. Nobody knows for sure if it is the biggest in the world costume party or not, but it’s worth attending if you are in Argentina by that date. It is an event unique in its magnitude, creativity and colorfulness. The streets of the city seem taken by human caricatures, dolls, animals and eccentrics characters. The city turns into a big circus. Everyone shows off their costumes and happiness. Chilean miners and the Fénix Capsule, Michael Jackson, Osama Bin Laden, Shrek, Che Guevara, the Smurfs, Pirates of the Caribbean, Green Lantern, Flash, Batman, Batgirl, Spiderman, The Flintstones, the Kiss, Slash, the Michelin doll, Ronald Mc Donald’s, are among the most popular characters that appear in the city during the previous hours. There are also police officers, FBI agents, soldiers, gangsters, nurses, sexy angels and evils, priests, nuns, brides and avatars.

“We are a group of 22 friends who gather together since many years ago. In 1999 we had the idea of a costume party because seven of us have their birthday in August. At that time we were one hundred and fifty people and this year we are fifty thousand”, says Julian Abramor one of the hosts.

The chosen date is the same every year because there is a national holiday every August in Argentina and most people are available for the long weekend. “All of us were studying outside the city and taking advantage of the long weekend to rent a ballroom, buy drinks, hire a DJ and organize the first party was easier for everyone as there was some extra free time. Every year, each of us would bring their own friends from universities and so and the party became more popular”, says host Jorge Uranga. “The idea then was to celebrate birthdays and not to make money. But some years later we had to limit the amount of participants because there was already too many people”, he recalls. “We got out of hand in 2002″, says Abramor. In that occasion the organizers had planned to host five hundred guests but unexpectedly two thousand people appeared. They ran out of drinks, room, and the party collapsed.

Paraná is located 500 kilometers away from the capital city and each of the 350 thousand inhabitants expresses proud ownership for the party. The Costume Party began to grow up to a large scale six years ago as it was spread rapidly by word of mouth. People who had never heard about it wondered how so many people could be gathered with almost no advertising. The whole city dresses up in disguises and accommodation is always working at full capacity on the eve of the party. “We get tourists from all over Argentina and other countries”, adds Abramor.

But not only the amount of participants increased. Major sponsors decided to join the party and it was declared of tourist interest for provincial and municipal authorities. The organization became a professional company supported by the city council and is estimated to generate a movement of approximately U$S 5 million. “The accommodation capacity of the city is full and there are even people who stay in nearby towns because there is no room”, explains Alejandro Richardet, Secretary of Tourism of Paraná. The Costume Party became so great that some editions ago it started to receive foreign tourists, mainly from Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay and Paraguay. 

The place where it is held has eight hectares and is located in the outskirts of the city, just 10 minutes away from downtown. There are big tents with different types of music, bar drinks, a food court, an amusing park with rides and even a first aid tent to handle any emergency that may occur. The surroundings are filled with stalls offering everything from drinks to hamburgers and sweet pastries, including the native “choripan”. Those who have come to this party for many years says that riots are minimum and of little impact. However, prevention is not left out because the security operation includes 400 police and 200 private agents.

Of course there are prizes for best costumes and all attendees participate in taking pictures in the stands placed in different parts of the premises. Voting is open until ten days later and is done through text messages. People come up with an amazing spirit to have fun, meet people from other places and make friends, couple and lovers.

One hundred and fifty people assisted to the first edition in 1999, two thousand in 2002, in 2010 the amount of people raised to thirty five thousand and in 2011 the number grew to 50 thousand. Who knows how many people will take part in 2012? The Costume Party is definitely a place where everything could happen…

COPA AMERICA: MESSI NO-SHOW FOR ARGENTINA IN DRAW AGAINST BOLIVIA

Artículo escrito para el sitio Sabotage Times el 1 de julio: www.sabotagetimes.com

Link: http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/copa-america-messi-no-show-for-argentina-in-draw-against-bolivia/

The opening game of the Copa America featured Argentina against Bolivia. With all eyes on Lionel Messi to reproduce his form for Barcelona in the Blue and White of his national team, he failed to show up again...

In football, some colours are stronger than others – but sometimes, history is even stronger than colours. That is the case with Lionel Messi, Barcelona’s superstar but while playing for the Argentine national team he looks like an ordinary player.
For many people, he should be treated as he is at Barcelona. Molly coddled and with the team moulded to play around him. For other people, Messi, as Diego Maradona did, has the task of leading the Argentine national team to nothing less than glory. However Lionel Messi is not Maradona and he definitely does not have his personality. Detractors claim that Messi has won everything but the World Cup, which is said to be the ultimate goal for a professional footballer.
Argentina and Bolivia opened the Copa America and the entire world was expecting to see Lionel Messi at his best, but he never appeared. Batista’s team could’ve lost the match, and the cold in the Unico’s Stadium caught Messi on another off day. If it was difficult to beat Bolivia, what would’ve happened if the rival were Brazil or Uruguay?

Today, the newspapers are asking why Messi isn’t the same in an Argentine shirt? Perhaps the problem is not Messi. Perhaps the problem is that the team does not suit Messi because it is overloaded with stars. As so happens when there are a lot of stars in a football team, they crash and burn.
“We need calm. We must win both games we have left.” said Messi after the game. Sergio Aguero instead changed the face of the game. He scored the equaliser and was the clear attacking difference. The Atletico Madrid player wants to make the headlines, although it is unimaginable that Messi will be sent to the bench.
It is noteworthy that the only applause generated by Messi from Argentine fans on the night wasn’t down to his football. It was prompted by a heated verbal exchange with the Bolivian Ronald Raldes.
As Bolivia celebrated the draw, Argentina were left to ask questions of the coach and the team. Especially Messi, the best player in the world today.
It’s now up to Messi to prove himself . If he can ignore what is being said off the field, and focus on doing his best – the world will see the real Messi play for the national team. There is nowhere better for him to show his best than in America’s Cup, which began yesterday in Argentina. Here he can prove himself in preparation for Brazil 2014.