Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal national team manager Carlos Quieroz has been fired by the Portugal Football Federation following his six month ban for supposedly disrupting the nation’s doping agency from testing players before the World Cup. Ronaldo’s league rival Argentine forward Lionel Messi’s interim national team coach Sergio Batista has been briefly extended by his homeland’s football federation.
And although the two stories are not directly related, it appears that the two best footballers in La Liga have experienced interesting national team stories this week of action. Ronaldo’s story is more on the troubling side considering the coach was not privately told the news of his six month ban and discovered the report no different then all of us. The coach recently fumed over the lack of professionalism that occurred regarding the nation’s way of dealing with the scenario and although he admitted guilt in the situation believes that the ruling was completely unjustified. Quieroz will likely still look for some form of justice for the harsh decision made a week back of banning the coach, but it appears regardless of the legal actions which will likely take place that Portugal will need to find a new man for the Euro 2012 qualifying run.
As for Argentina and Messi, there story is nearly as bizarre considering the legend that Batista had to replace in order to be awarded the honor of interim coach. But in his short stint as the national side’s manager Batista has proven to be a much more effective coach then Maradona was. The side recently handed World Cup winners Spain an embarrassing 4-1 defeat and strangely enough the effort was only good enough to award the coach a few more guaranteed months as the team’s manager. But in his short time as manager, Batista has made all of the right moves and brought back all of the right people that Maradona snubbed this summer. The coach should be granted a proper extension sometime soon, but the federation suggested that they will evaluate the situation at the end of the calender year.
But while on break last week for international play, one star lost a manager and the other one saw their new coach extended.