Ariel Ortega, the 36 years old midfield maestro and a key player for River Plate in the last two decades, was told by the coach Jose Lopez that he is not needed anymore in the team. Ortega missed the first day training session for the upcoming Clausura tournament, without a clear reason. When he came to training next day, he was told by Lopez on his decision.
Ortega joined River Plate in 1991 and stayed as a key player since them. He had his own transfer and movements around clubs in Europe and Argentina. River remained his main club.
Ortega had an alcohol and disciplinary problems in his career, but not in the last stage in recent years. So, the decision to end his career in a very cold way, won't be appreciated by sports fans and media.
Anyhow, Ariel is one of the players who didn't give all of what he had. His real peak started in 1994 when he played instead of Maradona in that World Cup after the drug test scandal. Despite the defeat vs. Romania 2-3, Ariel had a wonderful game that showed a very promising player. With his shirt number 20, Ariel penetrated the Romanian defence as he wished, created critical smart passes. It was sort of watching Iniesta today.
I remember World Soccer gave a big report on two key players after the 1994 WC: Ariel Ortega from Argentina and Ronaldo from Brazil. One made it very big in career, and one stayed at a normal level.
He was famous by his accurate penetrating passes (as I said sort of Iniesta today) and his chip goals.
Another wonderful compilation for Ortega to watch
No comments:
Post a Comment