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Agence France-Presse

Argentina’s football association fired Edgardo Bauza as coach of the crisis-hit national team as it struggles to qualify for next year’s World Cup, the head of the body said Monday.
It was the first big move by the Argentine Football Association (AFA) since it last month picked new executives tasked with ending three years of turmoil in the Argentine game.
“We have reached a verbal agreement. We have told Edgardo Bauza that he is no longer the coach of Argentina,” the AFA’s new president Claudio Tapia said after meeting with Bauza at the association’s headquarters.
He did not say who Bauza’s replacement would be, but said more details would be given at a news conference scheduled for Tuesday at 10.30pm GMT at the AFA.
The world number two-ranked football nation risks failing to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1970.
Star striker Lionel Messi is to miss the country’s three remaining qualifying matches due to suspension.
After a defeat to Bolivia last month, Argentina dropped to fifth place in the regional table – out of the top-four automatic qualifying positions.
Fifa hit Messi with a four-match ban last month for swearing at an assistant referee in a game against Chile.
Bauza vowed after the Bolivia defeat that his squad had the strength to fight on.
But Argentina have won only one of eight World Cup 2018 qualifiers played without Barcelona superstar Messi, compared to five out of six won with him on the pitch.
“The national team is playing badly and everyone knows it,” Tapia said last week.
Argentina in danger of missing 2018 World Cup due to Messi’s suspension
Argentina’s World Cup hero Diego Maradona said he was ready to lead an appeal to Fifa against Messi’s ban. But it is rare for the sport’s governing world body to repeal a suspension.
Messi threatened to quit the national team last year after they lost on penalties to Chile in the Copa America Centenario final.
That crisis prompted then-coach Gerardo Martino to quit and be replaced by Bauza, who left Brazilian club Sao Paulo to take up the post.
Various other possible replacements such as Mauricio Pochettino of Tottenham Hotspur and Diego Simeone of Atletico Madrid reportedly turned down the job.
Bauza is the shortest-serving Argentina coach since 1974.
During eight months with him in charge, Argentina won three matches and lost three, with two draws.
The team has been undermined by a broader crisis afflicting the Argentina game, tangled up with politics.
A power struggle broke out after the death of former AFA president Julio Grondona in 2014.
Maradona last year branded the AFA’s management a “mafia.”
Argentina’s president Mauricio Macri too complained of “the poor organisation of Argentine football.” He urged reform to “a system full of bad habits and corruption.”
Fifa and the Argentine courts have probed the AFA’s affairs.
Tapia acknowledged last week that firing Bauza would be problematic given the association’s financial difficulties, though on Monday he appeared to have found a solution.
“We have a coach who has a cancellation clause. These contracts are not cheap,” he said last week.
“If you bring in a new coach, you have to have resources. If a coach earns two and you bring in one who earns three, where do you get it from?”


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Crisis-hit Argentina fire coach Edgardo Bauza after just eight games in charge amid World Cup woes

Given the chop: Argentina have fired head coach Edgardo Bauza. Photo: Reuters

AFA president Claudio "Chiqui" Tapia leaves the AFA premises after meeting with Argentina's coach Edgardo Bauza's representative, in Buenos Aires, on April 10, 2017. Bauza ceased to be Argentina's football team coach, Tapis said. / AFP PHOTO / N A / MARCELO CAPECE / Argentina OUT

epa05901910 Fc Barcelona's forward Lionel Messi (L) during a training session on the eve of the first leg of quarterfinals Champions League soccer match between Juventus FC and FC Barcelona at Juventus Stadium in Turin, Italy, 10 April 2017. EPA/ALESSANDRO DI MARCO

Sport

Football

Bauza fired after just eight games is charge as Argentina struggle to qualify for next year’s World Cup


Crisis-hit Argentina fire coach Edgardo Bauza after just eight games in charge amid World Cup woes

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Bauza fired after just eight games is charge as Argentina struggle to qualify for next year’s World Cup

Bauza fired after just eight games is charge as Argentina struggle to qualify for next year’s World Cup