Fuck you Basile.

Let's start with the excuses for the exclusion of Aimar, Crespo and Cambiasso. aka. Inter and Zaragoza don't want to lent out all their players.

Zaragoza will face R.Murcia (just got promoted) on 26th, and they will play Racing on the 2nd. After that they get a week of rest (Euro '08 qualifier week) then play Bilbao (last place before relegation) on the 16th of September.
SerieA starts on 26th of August also. Inter's first match will be against Udinese, then they play Empoli on the 1st. Don't tell me the Inter Bums can't beat Udinese at home without those 2! Empoli is tougher and away, but it would be 9 days after the friendly. After that, these players would get the by week too for Euro '08 qualifiers.

These excuses are FUCKING LAME! The real reason behind these exclusion is that Basile doesn't want to use them.

Not including Cambiasso is understandable because him playing one of the outside midfielders really limits our attacking options. In the Copa, he wasn't very effective in defense either, so eventhough he's very hard working, his NT future doesn't look all that good if we can find better options to that left outside mid position.

Crespo is necessary at this point, because Diego Milito isn't enough to fill his shoes. Towards the end of Copa, Basile was forced to use the Tevez-Messi duo due to Diego Milito's incompetence, and now he's using him as the last hope?
Higuain dropped out of the list since he injured himself. However, even if he wasn't, do we not have other choice but those 2? There are some names of good #9 players I've mentioned in previous posts and comments, and there are plenty coming up.
The issue here is, we do not need to depend on Higuain or Diego Milito for target person. Crespo is still in good form to fulfill that role in the mean time. Why excluding him from a match where our opponents are mostly tall and strong?

Aimar is the most disappointing exclusion. Roman is in a world of shit right now. Villarreal is set to decline the loan plan, and wants immediate payment if Boca decides to purchase him. That's a shit ton of money for Boca and they cannot afford even if they make up the majority from selling player rights. Riquelme's future is very uncertain.
Now, back to Aimar. Since Riquelme won't be able to play the CAM, Aimar is next in line. Even Maxi playing CAM would be better choice than F.Insua. Picking Insua and excluding Aimar is a clear message, Basile doesn't like Aimar playing enganche.
F.Insua is nothing more than a temporary sub for Riquelme. He's 28, so definitely not a successor. And he's far from a replacement to Roman's genius.

Also excluded was Heinze. This will bring us to the problems in defense exerted by Basile's list.

Our defense looked shaky in both the friendlies and some the Copa matches. Playing the 4-3-1-2 formation, defense must press up to stay within 10 yard or so from the midfield. This not only provides vertical support to the midfielders from behind them, it also provides lateral definition for the entire formation.

For this type of defense, Heinze and Gabriel Milito aren't exactly suited. The later is too slow to press and recover. Against Brazil, Milito's lack of speed was made very obvious as he wasn't able to cover any diagonal runs produced by Brazilian midfielders and forwards. His ability in the air was mediocre as well. On several occasions he was able to head the ball, but not able to control the direction... Heinze shares some characteristics with Milito, but the left back position isn't as popular as CB. We have many proven CB can replace Milito, but not many fullbacks more reliable than Heinze. So, eventhough Heinze's contract is a court matter at the moment, he's still very valuable to the team.

Now, here's the biggest problem of Basile's list. It contains only 1 younger defender. Garay is a very good CB choice because he's awesome in the air, but besides him, Basile's list offers no further opportunity to test defenders for the future. Especially fullbacks. Zanetti will be almost 37 (short by 1 month) by 2010 World Cup. The problem with bringing older players is that they recover much slower. Towards the end of tournaments, they aren't as reliable even if they hadn't sustained any injury. Ayala was a perfect example.

If no addition to the list, there's no testing subject for fullbacks at all. How can Basile do this?! He brings Coloccini! Of all the defenders played on Argentina NT in the past 7 years, Coloccini is probably the most hated. Is Basile on coke? We have tons of fullbacks desperate for a chance to shine in NT, and Coloccini is the best he could come up with? Bottinelli, Ferrari, Eluchans, Voboril, Clemente, Angelleri, Villagra, Alvarez, Insua, Grimi, Torren, Spolli... The list goes on. Since he's bringing F.Insua who plays in Mexico, "European based" is not a valid excuse.

Last but not least, I want to bitch about 2 midfielder choices of Basile.

Some people had argued that Lucho scored 12 goals for Porto last year. Did they realize how shitty the BwinLiga is? 5 of Lucho's goals were from games where Porto had opened the floodgate (won by 3 or more), 3 of his goals were from taking penalty, and he scored an own goal against one of the few formidable opponents in Portugal - Benfica. That match was tied 1-1 due to his autogoal.

In the Copa, Lucho was complete shit. Even when everyone else did well, like in the Paraguay match, he still managed to play like shit. Since the friendlies, the only game he did ok was against Algeria, a completely mismatched opponent.

I don't care what Real Madrid sees in Lucho, he's not a NT caliber player. Plain and simple.

The other shitty choice was C.Ledesma. This is a center and semi-defensive midfielder, a player at the position we're overloading. Mascherano is a beast while Gago offers better distribution, Even if one of these gets injured before a tournament, we still have Banega and Yacob ready to go. Why in the fuck do we need Ledesma? How many fucking holding midfielders does he want to play? In the Copa final, we were already fucked once by having 3 people playing holding midfielder (2 of which, Veron and Cambiasso, weren't dedicated DM), and now we want to find more players of that type?

In sum, Basile's list is total crap. It addressed none of the crucial issues of NT where we need immediate solutions. 2010 World Cup qualifiers start in little over 2 month. There are only 2 opportunities before that to fine tune the NT, and the September friendly will be tougher for players to participate due tot heir club duties.

Do it like Maradona: Give up Coke!