LUCIANA REJOINS THE PRIDE

Following officially sanctioned extensive rest leave after leading Las Leonas to become World Champions last year, Argentine legend, Luciana Aymar, record breaking seven times world player of the year, has decided , a month earlier than expected, to rejoin the national team when they commence training in Buenos Aries at Centro Nacional de Alto Rendimiento Deportivo* (CENARD) on January 24th.

Luciana posing with her Las Leoans team mates after their champions Trophy victory 2010

It seems unimaginable that any other player in the world, other than Luciana, could be held in such high regard and trust by her federation , and be afforded the luxury of taking all the time she needed to recuperate and weigh up her options. After years of selfless dedication and sacrifice for the team, and having put other personal ambitions on ice for so long as well as absorbing the impact her dedication to the game has had on her personal life, lifting the Cup at Rosario only increased her celebrity and potential heralded further demands being placed upon her on and off the pitch.

It is only relatively recently that she and the established members of the team became national celebrities and all have had to cope with heightened levels of media attention and various offers coming to them from the media and potential sponsors. In the bulk of her time as a player since becoming established in the national team Luciana focused on her game and shied away from media attention and had to seek professional counselling to enable her to gain sufficient confidence to cope with the increasing media demands made upon her. But, with typical humility , she admitted in one magazine interview last autumn , while away from the game , that her ultimate ambition was to marry and raise a family. During and immediately after the World Cup she became the most celebrated Argentine sports celebrity on a par with and compared to national hero footballer Maradona and indeed came out way ahead of current Argentine footballing and other national sports stars in a national opinion poll at the end of last year.

Yet Luciana had shunned the bright lights and feting afforded nationally to the rest of the team immediately following the World Cup at Rosario , seeking rest and to be with her beloved family and elected initially to take and extended break holidaying in a ski resort in the Andes. Speculation grew that she might decide to retire and forego the challenge of one more push to crown her career by making herself available for the Olympics in 2012. There is no doubt that she was assured of an alternative career in the media especially having been taken under the wing of head of the leading Argentine model agency, Dotto acting as manager and adviser and it was reported that she had been given till February by the CAH this year to make her mind up with regards to rejoining the national team.

It was never really on the cards that she would abandon the game totally at this point in her career and it was also clear that she took her responsibility seriously as an icon and ambassador for the game and she made a series of impromptu inspirational visits to grass roots clubs during her break from team duties and visited the revised squad to watch them train on one occasion at Cenard though she did not participate.

Luciana , in another interview last year also addressed the issue of her importance to the team and their future success. She modestly declared that the great strength of Las Leonas was not in individual players but a combined passion and dedication to be the best and most importantly , the ability to play as a team. To my mind that is the crux of the Las Leonas success story ; it appears that all players signed up ,prior to the World Cup campaign , to take on what Retegui called their “Everest” and, it appeared , adopted a sisterly pact to work together with total dedication , train together even more rigorously with for example professional track athletes and to adopt a punishing schedule of full-on training, including swimming and weights and with an emphasis on pitch based activities. Luciana of course was involved in that demanding preparation and jointly savoured the fruits of the team’s effort with the victory over the former champions Netherlands in Rosario.

With her in the role of Captain, the team had enjoyed an unprecedented year in the history of the nation’s game. They played a total of 60 games, won 48, drew 7 and lost 5. They scored a total of 173 goals ,an average of 2.88 per game. They conceded 65 goals and won 80 percent of the games and lost one in twelve. Of a total of 180 points at stake, they took and impressive 151, thus yielding stats of their being 83.88 percent effective. And while Luciana rested, we saw the introduction of a new fitness coach, Alejandro Labonia, who illustrated the national governing body’s and Coach Retegui’s intention, not for the team to rest on their laurels having found a world beating formula, but to up the ante even further , especially in levels of match play specific fitness.

The new Argentine squad began team training last year several weeks before the Dutch for example. We saw the unfortunate demise of Dutch coach Herman Kruis and the more recent announcement of the appointment of former Argentine international , Max Caldas taking over the role and we are yet to see what impact his appointment will have . We have also seen the disruption of top level club hockey affecting national players to some degree in England and Holland with play seriously disrupted by adverse weather.

With Luciana resting , and presumably the coach having complete faith she would maintain her general fitness whilst away and effortlessly dovetail back into the team at a later date, Retegui has had to deal with the loss, through retirement, of a handful of well established players and is integrating a number of new highly promising youngsters. The revised squad, in keeping with the Argentine focus on maintaining pitch fitness in an ever busy and demanding schedule against international opposition, ventured to South Africa for a series of five friendlies towards the end of last year. Held at an often cold and rain swept University of Free State Hockey Centre in Bloemfontein, the revised squad saw new players integrating well and some standout play from them and the visitors completing the series with four wins out of five taking the first two games 2-0, the third 2-1, taking the South Africans apart in the fourth game 6-1 and curiously losing the last game of the series 4-0.

A key block in Coach Retegui’s policy is regular competitive match practice and again this year the squad have a packed schedule starting with two four nations international against United States, Germany and Australia to be held in in Mendoza 9^th -13^th February and at Rosario from 14th to 20^th February. Then of course we have the wonderful prospect of seeing the Argentine champions defending their Champions Trophy win in Amsterdam in late June this year.

* National Center of High Performance Athletics (CENARD)

(Player and schedule Information below courtesy of CAH.)

The Four Nations Training Squad comprises of :-

Goalkeepers: Belen Succi, Laura Aladro and Julia Simonassi.

Defenders: Silvina D'Elia, Noel Barrionuevo, Giselle Kanevsky, Victoria Zuloaga and Sophia Maccari.

Midfielders: Luciana Aymar, Rosario Luchetti, Mariela Scarone, Marcela Casale, Rocío Sánchez Moccia, Natalia Del Frari, Macarena Rodriguez, Jimena Cedrés and Florencia Habif.

Forwards : Soledad García, Carla Rebecchi, Daniela Sruoga, Delfina Merino, Carla Dupuy, Martina Cavallero, Rocío González Canda, Josefina Sruoga, Eugenia Garrafo y Ana López Basavilbaso.

The provisional Schedule for the two tournaments is as follows :-

MENDOZA

09/02/11

19hs - Argentina vs USA

21hs - Germany vs Australia

10/02/11

19hs - Argentina vs Germany

21hs - Australia vs USA

12/02/11

19hs - Germany vs USA

21hs - Argentina vs Australia

Sunday 13/02/11