Argentina – Australia: World Cup in Qatar 2022, live | The Albiceleste, with the favorite poster, is measured with the Australian team in search of the quarterfinals

Soccer World Cup

Argentina – Australia in 1993: Grondona’s “fast coffee” and Maradona’s farewell

Although Argentina and Australia will face each other this Saturday for the first time in a World Cup, in 1993 they staged a duel that was very similar to it: they resolved the last place in the 1994 World Cup in the United States in a dramatic play-off. They were two games in limbo legal, without anti-doping control, in Sydney and Buenos Aires, which marked the return of Diego Maradona to the Albiceleste after three and a half years, after the runner-up in Italy 1990, but which were also a farewell: the idol – who said that he and some of his players consumed a “fast coffee” to gain a physical advantage in the absence of controls – he would no longer officially play in his country after that 1-0 victory against the Oceanics at the Monumental. Almost three decades later, Argentina prays that another game with Australia (this Saturday, at 8:00 p.m.), this time for the round of 16 of Qatar 2022, does not mark the end of Lionel Messi in his team.

A story by Andrés Burgo.