Argentina-Burkina Faso?, the messiest friendly in history

It seems like a lie, but it’s true. The world runner-up has a friendly scheduled for 9 p.m. today, this Argentine Saturday, and at 2 a.m. on Sunday in Spain. And he doesn’t know if he will play. All because its modest rival, due to logistical sloppiness, was stranded in Casablanca (Morocco) and in the early hours of this same Saturday it had not yet taken off for Buenos Aires.

Faced with this inconvenience, the party organization analyzed the possibility of changing the opponent and that Argentinainstead of playing against Burkina Fasotoday ends up facing Benin, which is already in Buenos Aires and which in principle is the team set as a rival for Lionel Messi’s farewell match scheduled for Tuesday.

If Burkina Faso does not arrive on time, the rival will be Benin. That transcended from the organization at the birth this morning in Argentina. Unusual. Unpublished. Sloppy. Unpresentable. Also real.

What happened? The Burkina Faso Football Federation made its problem official with an official statement in which it reported that the trip that was scheduled for September 30 was canceled without prior notice by the company that chartered the charter plane. The rescheduling of the itinerary, which included a trip of many hours and with stops, was not accepted by the players. And then a conflict arose. Since they couldn’t find any other alternative, everything was delayed.

In this framework, as reported by the AFA, the organization of the match (a Colombian company called Eurodata Sport, which represents several players) obtained a charter flight from the Portuguese airline Hi Fly that would land in Buenos Aires this Saturday at 1:15 p.m. Argentine time. Only almost eight hours before the start of the match, scheduled for 9 p.m.! Of course, several Burkina Faso starters would not travel and would be replaced by youth players.

Argentina reaches this situation because it has made it customary to hold selected friendlies in the country against low-level rivals, who only charge all expenses and do not receive a fixed prize in order to face a giant. The objective of the AFA is to maximize income regardless of the hierarchy of the parties. That is why four of the last five friendlies in the country were against Mauritania, Zambia, Burkina Faso and Benin.

In short, the completion of the friendly remains to be seen. In principle it will be at 9 p.m. this Saturday (2 a.m. on a Spanish Sunday), at the Monumental stadium. Argentina against Burkina Faso, if it arrives. And if not it could be against Benin. A nonsense never seen before.

In this framework, delving into football issues seems like a joke. If there is a match, Argentina would form with Emiliano Martínez; Agustín Giay, Cristian Romero, Lisandro Martínez, Facundo Medina; Giuliano Simeone or Franco Mastantuono, Alexis Mac Allister, Enzo Fernández or Exequiel Palacios, Nico Pazi; Julián Álvarez and Lautaro Martínez. At this point, the team that Lionel Scaloni can present is the least important thing.