Batigol has world at his feet

Can Argentina win the World Cup? It is already time to ask, as they have virtually qualified already, standing five points clear at the top of the South American table.

Nor are they simply kings of their own continent, because last Wednesday night they beat Italy 2-1 in Rome. And as their fascinating manager Marcelo Bielsa noted, they should have scored more.

Their front six against Italy is a mantra to be recited slowly: Javier Zanetti, Juan Sebastian Verón, Diego Simeone, Kily Gonzalez, Pablo Aimar and Hernan Crespo.

Marcelo Gallardo came on as a substitute and Claudio Lopez stayed on the bench, while Fernando Redondo, Ariel Ortega, Juan Román Riquelme and Gabriel Batistuta weren't even there. No other country can offer as much.

Yet whether they can win the 2002 World Cup depends chiefly on a 32-year-old with a bad knee, who was born in the sweltering town of Avellaneda in the province of Santa Fe.

Gabriel Batistuta learnt his football on the street and eventually took a bus a few hours down the road to the city of Rosario, where he signed for Newell's Old Boys, whose coach happened to be Marcelo Bielsa.

Rosario was a city in decline even then, but it had once been a glamorous place full of Italian, French and British immigrants grown rich from the region's endless farmland. The Italians and the French built beautiful houses and the British founded football clubs.

Newell's Old Boys were set up by former pupils of the local Anglo-Argentine school, whose headmaster was Isaac Newell. Over time, Rosario developed two great traditions: of political radicals and attacking football.

The most famous local boy is Che Guevara, but the region's contribution to intelligent football management is unique. Cesar Lluis Menotti, Hector Cuper, Jorge Valdano and Bielsa are all from here.

Bielsa, a product of a famous legal family, was a promising young footballer, a member of the same Newell's youth team as Valdano. His playing career never progressed far, though. It seems he was born to coach.

In his autobiography – which he did actually write himself – Batistuta wrote: "Bielsa was the most important coach for my formation as a football player." And this was well before Bielsa became manager of Argentina.

Their relationship was partly based on food. The nickname of the teenage Batistuta was "El Gordo", the fat one. He could not do, physically, what his peers could. Another coach might have shown him no patience, but Bielsa is a dedicated man.

He put the young Batistuta on a diet and, when it was completed, brought to the boy's room under the stadium a box of filled cookies as a reward. In 1991, the striker made his debut for Argentina.

Bielsa, meanwhile, won Argentine league titles with Newell's and another unglamorous club, Velez Sarsfield. He is, unfashionable as this currently sounds, a follower of the "modelo van Gaal". Bielsa's teams play the "Dutch" way: with two wingers around a centre-forward and, when the team have the ball, only three defenders. His teams attack.

"Our philosophy is to play to entertain," Verón crowed in Rome, "something that is maybe lacking in Italian football."

As unbending as Van Gaal (though more charming), Bielsa has brushed aside the objection that Argentina has few natural wingers. Ortega, Claudio Lopez and Kily Gonzalez have been made to do the job.

His problem is his defence: undermanned, and not very good in the first place. English fans know its weaknesses: Nelson Vivas is a reserve at Arsenal, while Roberto Ayala was twice humiliated by Michael Owen during that infamous World Cup clash in Saint-Etienne.

Argentine fans, always concerned with the beautiful game, hate watching them try to pass. Only Walter Samuel, now the Roma sweeper, meets their standards. France are the best team in the world. Argentina probably have the edge in attack, but cannot match the French in defence.

So, how will it go in Japan and Korea next year? In World Cup competitions, from the quarter-finals onwards, scoring requires a measure of genius.

Many of the winning teams in recent decades have had one forward at the peak of his career, whose goals could crack open the toughest matches: Jairzinho for Brazil in 1970; Gerd Müller for West Germany in 1974; Paolo Rossi for Italy in 1982; Romario for Brazil in 1994.

France, who won the last World Cup without a noted centre-forward, were the exceptions.

Argentina have some first-rate strikers in Crespo, Claudio Lopez and Martin Palermo, but first-rate isn't enough in the World Cup. They need Batistuta. For comparison: Crespo's goal against Italy was his 12th in 28 internationals, an impressive average. Batistuta has 54 in 74.

Last October I saw Argentina play Uruguay in a World Cup qualifier in Buenos Aires. Argentina did not play well and Uruguay matched them for passing, but everyone knew who would win, because Uruguay are the sort of old-fashioned South American side that disdains scoring.

Just before half-time, Batistuta smashed a half-volley with quite unnecessary force in to the top corner. Argentina won 2-1.

Afterwards, "Batigol" limped out of the changing-room. No one had expected him to be fit to play and now he had to dash back to Rome, to the club that paid £22 million for him and were not about to give him a break.

A few weeks later he spoke of having been "playing on one leg" all season. Currently he is sidelined for a month.

Can Argentina win the World Cup? The question is really whether Batistuta's knee can last another 16 months.