Sports minister Abdurahiman’s Argentina squad for Kerala off the target by almost 50%

The many bold declarations made by Kerala's Sports Minister V Abdurahiman in connection with a proposed visit by Lionel Messi and his Argentine national team included the announcement of the touring squad.

Abdurahiman put out a poster on his Facebook page as early as October 11 showing a graphical representation of a line-up, though with 18 players and coach Lionel Scaloni, which he wrote in bold letters were the 'Argentina squad that will land in Kerala'.

It's been more than a week since the proposed November 17 friendly at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at Kaloor in Kochi was called off, reportedly due to non-approval of the venue by FIFA. As a result, Argentina will only be playing a one-off friendly match in Angola on November 14 and head back to Spain for training.

On Friday, the Argentine Football Association (AFA) announced its squad for the FIFA window in November. Though the Kerala visit isn't happening, one was curious to know how the official squad compared to the one released by the Kerala sports minister a month ago, claiming to be the touring party.

It turns out, Minister Abdurahiman got about 13 of the 24 players in the official list, meaning he was off by almost 50 per cent (45% more or less).

The popular names from the minister's list that are not in the official squad are Emiliano Martinez, Marcos Acuna, Gonzalo Montiel, Leandro Paredes and Exequiel Palacios.

It is understood that Scaloni chose to rest Martinez, Paredes and Acuna for the away trip. Now, to give Abdurahiman the benefit of doubt, he put out the 'squad' a month ago and it was likely that players could get injured. But Palacios, who featured in the minister's list, had been injured since September, ruling him out for the rest of the year. It makes one wonder how the minister came up with the squad that he claimed was going to visit Kerala.