RETEQUI ANNOUNCES LEONAS CUB SELECT FOR ITALY

In preparation for a series of international friendlies in Italy, Argentina's Coach, Carlos Retegui, has announced his selection for games to be played in Rome, on November 17th, 18th, 19th, 23rd and 24th.

In the list, only goal keepers Belen Succi and Laura Aladro come from the Rosario world championship squad .The selection includes the presence of international junior, Jimena Cedrés, silver medalist in the Youth Olympic Games Singapore 2010, who has already made her debut for Las Leonas at only 16 years of age in Salta, during the international series played in 2009 against Great Britain. The squad will depart for Italy on Sunday 14th of November.

Italy Friendlies 2010. Argentina Squad select.

Sofía Maccari

Belén Facciano

Agustina Bouza

Marcela Casale

Victoria Zuloaga

Natalia Del Frari

Jimena Cedres

Luciana Soraco

Rocío Sanchez Moccia

María Jose Fernández

María Belén Succi

Martina Cavallero

Josefina Sruoga

Belén Zavalia

María Laura Aladro

Ana Basabilbaso

Florencia Calvete

Carla Dupuy

Mercedes Socino

Victoria Granatto

Coaching Staff:: Carlos Retegui (Coach), William Laudani (Manager), Alejandro Doherty (Assistant), Patricia Fioroni (physiotherapist), Florence Albanesi (Team Doctor)

This year's Las Leonas fixtures ends next month with the tour of South Africa, leaving 8th December and returning on 19th . Those five Test matches are to be played on 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th and 17th December.

With an eye on 2012, Las Leonas have begun training at the National Centre of Sport Excellence in Buenos Aries, having lost a number of players who have retired plus Luis Barrionuevo as trainer/ coach but with ex international player , charismatic Carlos Retegui very much at the centre of things taking the teams forward with his winning recipe. The world's best ever player, Luciana Aymar, once again is nominated as best world player of the year (along with Solidad Garcia.) Meanwhile, Aymar left the post-Rosario World Championship glitz early, in preference to getting back to her family and taking a holiday despite her elevation to national mainstream celebrity status only recently , now only matched perhaps by footballing icon, Maradona.

Exceptionally, with Luciana being such an outstanding player and now swamped with offers from TV, magazines, modelling assignments, the National Federation , the CAH, gave her special dispensation to take time out, not have to join the current squad training to go for the 2012 Olympic gold but allowed a long period of rest until February next year so that she has time to reflect on all her options and decide whether she is going to retire or keep going till after the London Olympics.

Such has been Aymar’s outstanding skill, commitment, and self-sacrifice, she is the only player that you could ever have been afforded such a luxury and yet her lifestyle has always included a self-punishing fitness regime so , you feel, she will cope whenever she decides she is ready to rejoin the team. We learn recently from keeping an eye on interviews she has given since Rosario that, surprise surprise, she has now decided that she wants to retire after the 2012 Olympics and wants to be a part of the team in that run up. Meanwhile, despite best intentions to get completely away from hockey for a while and taking time out to recover, she has, as has Carlos Retegui, chosen to visit clubs and schools to deliver inspirational speeches based on the punishing regime she and her team mates happily embraced to achieve World class success but more important , putting aside individual needs and aspirations and making the goals of working as part of a team the priority.

Effectively teams in Europe particularly enjoy much better funding, government and media support and better facilities than have been available to members of Argentine

national squads and feeder clubs,( many of which can't actually play on modern artificial surfaces), but their team-based approach has taken on all comers and , finally, found the opposition lacking. The Netherlands Federation, for example, rashly, in my view, arbitrarily sacked Coach Herman Kruis, and made him, it appears , the scapegoat for the country's “failure” to take gold in Rosario. (Far easier than look for a new broom than accept that Argentina had raised the bar and a fundamental re-assessment of national strategy would have been a more sensible approach.)

In the run up to 2012, not withstanding the departure after Rosario of key players from the Argentine squad who have been great servants for the country, it has been noted that, the current World Champions, at Nottingham, during the World Champions Trophy, statistically fielded a squad whose average age was older than all other teams and that of course appears to have implications for 2012 and beyond. Yet, as the Italy friendlies squad selection suggests, Argentine youth development policy, and the Federation's long term common sense approach , where talented key junior players have been included and played in internationals senior events with considerable success, suggests that the country will have little trouble maintaining the highest standards at international level, and providing players, despite their relatively tender years, who are more than capable of taking to the world stage and will not be found lacking.

Retegui’s coaching of Las Leonas for World Cup victory involved a carefully orchestrated family style pact between players and all backup staff and took regular , rigorous training and practice to new levels, and, in Italy and beyond, the Argentine “junior” selection will have already bought into this as the norm. It is the winning, totally team-player based formula that has put Argentina on the map as the act to follow. For 2012, it would be fatal , in my view to dismiss Argentina, thinking that the remaining core of seasoned players will be fading .

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