Published on 15.07.2018 at 22h54 by AFP

The 25 survivors of the sinking of a Spanish ship off the Argentine coast reached the mainland Sunday aboard two ships that had picked them up in storm-tossed seas, a Uruguayan navy spokesman said.

Sixteen survivors, and the body of one deceased crew member, arrived in Montevideo on the Spanish-flagged fishing vessel Farruco, the spokesman, Captain Marcelo Etchevers, told AFP.

The nine other survivors from the sinking of the trawler Dorneda arrived in Puerto Madryn, in Patagonia, aboard the trawler Beagle I.

Etchevers said the body of the dead man, a Peruvian, was transferred to the morgue. Another sailor, also a Peruvian, is still missing.

The Spanish and Peruvian consuls were at the dock in Montevideo to greet the Farruco. Poor weather had delayed its arrival.

Etchevers said local prosecutors would be taking statements from crew members.

The Montevideo-based Dorneda had put to sea on July 6 with a crew of 27, most of them Spanish or Peruvian, along with a few Moroccan and Indonesian sailors.

The Dorneda sank while in rough waters some 300 nautical miles (345 miles) from the Argentine city of Comodoro Rivadavia, in Patagonia.

Most crew members were able to escape on life rafts or a life boat.

The Argentine Navy said Wednesday that the sinking, sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday, might have been caused by water entering the craft at its stern ramp, where fishing nets are hoisted up.

Water entering the engine room could have cut power, making the ship uncontrollable in a storm and forcing the crew to abandon ship.</s>Sixteen of the 25 survivors of the sinking of a Spanish fishing vessel off the coast of Argentina arrived Sunday in the Uruguayan capital along with the body of a man who died in the accident.

The other nine members of the crew of the Dorneda who survived last Wednesday's tragedy came ashore around the same time in Mar del Plata, Argentina.</s>The Argentine Football Association (AFA) has announced Jorge Sampaoli will not continue as national team head coach following a chaotic World Cup.

A 3-0 group stage defeat to Croatia following a 1-1 draw with Iceland left Argentina on the brink of a humiliating exit in Russia, before just about squeezing through to the knockout phase thanks to a 2-1 triumph over Nigeria.

That luck failed in the last 16 against France, however, when they were beaten 4-3 by the eventual tournament winners.

Sampaoli got the Argentina job after building a solid reputation in charge of Universidad de Chile, Chile and Sevilla, leaving the Spanish club at the end of the 2016-17 season after guiding them to Champions League football.

Given the regard many held Sampaoli in, there was great optimism that he would end Argentina's period of underachievement and finally find the balance between getting the best out of Lionel Messi and making the team a success.

But very little has gone well for Sampaoli and Argentina since he took charge in May 2017, with the coach's continuous tactical tweaks and strange selection choices baffling many.

Throughout the World Cup, Argentina's deficiencies through the middle and at the back continued to be exploited and France tore them apart at times, taking full advantage of their lack of pace, but Sampaoli failed to make alterations to address the problems.

"Today, the Argentina Football Association and the former national team coach, Jorge Sampaoli, have mutually agreed to the termination of their contract. Likewise, the physical trainer, Jorge Desio and the video analyst, Matias Manna, also disassociated themselves.

"Next Tuesday if will be defined who will be in charge of the Under-20 team in the COTIF L'Alcudia 2018 tournament.

"This association thanks the professionals for the developments within La Selección during their cycle."</s>Jorge Sampaoli and the Argentina national team agreed to part ways, the soccer federation announced on Sunday. With Sampaoli gone, there could be a lot more changes coming to Argentine soccer. After the World Cup disaster, losing in the round of 16 to eventual champion France, Argentina could be looking at selecting a fresh crop of players to join the national team to help lead it into the future. A lot of that will depend on who the new manager is. Sampaoli had success in Chile as manager of the national team and a club manager at Universidad de Chile, but never seemed to get similar results in his home country of Argentina.

It was clear he had a hard time understanding how to use his players, sticking with a formation, and motivating his team to perform on the field up to their potential. There were plenty of reasons why Argentina crashed out of the tournament, but Lionel Messi's performance was not among them.

So now, Argentina must find the right person to guide a proud national team into the future as it continues to covet an international title which it hasn't done on the senior circuit since 1993. There are a lot of options, but it's likely that the manager will be Argentine and there's a chance he could be currently working in Europe, Argentina's top division or possibly coaching another national team in South America.

Why he could be the pick: The veteran manager, who played five years for the national team in the '80s, worked wonders as manager of the Peruvian national squad, leading the team to the 2018 World Cup. Gareca guided a team that has been considered a bottom-dweller for decades through arguably the hardest qualifying zone in the world in South America and managed to punch a ticket to the World Cup for the first time since 1982. He's earned legendary status there, understands the game so well and knows how to build a team, which is what Argentina has been missing.

Why he could be the pick: El Muñeco, who played for D.C. United in 2008, has done just fine as a manager. After winning the Uruguayan league in 2011-12, he has won a Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana at River Plate, and he's won two Copa Argentinas. He is a demanding coach who has a great eye for talent, and he would bring in some young players to this national team. He's got a really good shot to get this job.

Why he could be the pick: Out of a job after stepping down from the Chivas gig, Gallardo's former teammate at River Plate has been linked to the Mexico national team job should Juan Carlos Osorio go. He has done well everywhere, including leading River back to the top flight six years ago and doing the same with Banfield two years later before winning five titles at Chivas, including the 2018 CONCACAF Champions League over Toronto FC. He's not the first option by any means, but he'll likely be looked at.

The dream that likely won't come true

Why he could be the pick: He's the hottest coach out of Argentina at the moment because of what he's done from Atletico Madrid, turning them into a power in Spain, lifting a club from a long spell of mediocrity. He's defensive minded and elite at coaching how to pressure, which will be key to Argentina's future, but he was offered the job two years ago and declined, so he's unlikely to take it now with Lionel Messi's future uncertain.

Why he could be the pick: "Poch" has done so well at Tottenham. He's shown the ability to scout top talent and help them progress, and he's moved the Spurs from a team likely to finish sixth to mid-table to a team with three straight top-three finishes in the Premier League and a boatload of players who were featured at the World Cup. The only glaring thing working against him on his resume -- no trophies in nearly 10 years of coaching, but it feels like he'll get one soon, and he wasn't in a good spot to win one at Espanyol or Southampton. It would be a good pick for this team.

Argentina has some time to make this decision with the Copa America next summer being its next important competition, but it's likely it'll have somebody hired in the coming months to get this team back on track after a horrible last few years.</s>"I have said before that diving is part of Neymar's game," Celtic defender Mikael Lustig mused last November. "So, we will see it again and again.

"But if he wants to be liked as much as [Lionel] Messi, maybe he needs to stop that."

After Neymar's tiresome theatrics throughout Brazil's World Cup campaign, it's no longer about becoming as popular as his former Barcelona team-mate; it's about losing his status as the most disliked player in world football.

Russia 2018 has been a public relations disaster for the game's most expensive player.

There was widespread sympathy for the forward when he was taken out of 2014 World Cup by Juan Camilo Zuniga but, this time around, neutrals across the globe revelled in his exit at the quarter-final stage.

With his pathetic play-acting, Neymar achieved something never previously thought possible: making Brazil unpopular. So many football fans didn't want to see everyone's favourite second team win the World Cup because they couldn't stomach the thought of the No.10 lifting the trophy.

Furthermore, it wasn't as if Neymar's considerable talent was missed either, as he never really found his best form. As Brazil legend Ronaldo admitted, "We all expected more from him."

Only in one sense, though. As Lustig quite rightly pointed out, the diving was to be expected.

There are those that actually believe that Lionel Messi was responsible for Argentina's last-16 exit. Granted, the No.10 was not at his best in Russia – he only had one goal and two assists to show for his efforts – but one could only attribute the Albiceleste's failure to the captain if he actually had been picking the team.

But he wasn't; Sampaoli was, and he should be held accountable. He didn't once pick the same side or formation at the World Cup, and his excuse for such inconsistent selection?

“We tried many different tactics: surround Messi, create space for him... We tried to use everything we had to allow him to do what he can do. Sometimes we managed it, sometimes we didn’t."

In truth, they never managed it. Furthermore, why was Sampaoli still searching for the best way to use Messi, or a functioning system, at a World Cup? He'd been at the helm for almost a year and still hadn't figured out that playing a spent Javier Mascherano was a recipe for disaster. As for the benching of Sergio Aguero, the mind boggles.

The reality is that Sampaoli arrived in Russia without any coherent strategy. As Ossie Ardiles said of the "worst national team" in Argentine history, "Sampaoli's Plan A: give the ball to Messi and wait for a miracle. If plan A doesn't work, there’s no plan B.

"All the decline during recent years was concealed behind this incomparable genius, who, fortunately for us, was born in Argentina."

Unfortunately for Messi, his last shot at World Cup glory was overseen by Sampaoli.

"I have no regrets," a defiant Luis Rubiales declared after Spain's loss to Russia. "I do not care about comments made with hindsight."

One didn't need the benefit of hindsight to know that the decision to fire coach Julen Lopetegui two days before the start of the World Cup was always likely to backfire. It caused chaos, changing the entire atmosphere surrounding one of the tournament favourites.

When Sergio Ramos arrived for his first pre-game press conference in Sochi on the eve of the game against Portugal, he was all smiles as he posed alongside new coach Fernando Hierro. Less than 20 minutes later, after being grilled on Lopetegui's dismissal, he announced, exasperated, "I'm going to leave now because it feels like a funeral in here when, in fact, tomorrow we're going to play in the World Cup, which is a marvellous event."

The only thing marvellous about Spain's campaign, though, was their 3-3 draw with Portugal. It would be their only decent performance. La Roja won just one game, against Iran, and only scraped through as group winners thanks to an injury-time equaliser from Iago Aspas against Morocco.

In the last 16, against hosts Russia, they passed their way into oblivion and were eliminated on penalties. They were all possession, no penetration. Hierro complained that they had bowed out unbeaten, after the lottery of penalties, but at least the shootout had offered them five clear sights of goals – more than they had managed in the preceding 120 minutes of tedious tiki-taka football.

Real Madrid had played their part in the humiliation, too, having shown their usual disregard for everyone but themselves by refusing to wait until after the tournament to either hire or announce Lopetegui as their new coach. Lopetegui himself also should have afforded his bosses at the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) more respect by giving them more than five minutes' notice of his imminent exit. After all, he had only signed a two-year contract extension in May.

However, Spain's demise was primarily down to Rubiales' rashness. He defended himself by saying, "We have been forced to take this decision because the Spain team is every Spanish person's team."

The implication was that he had put the interests of the nation ahead of any personal feelings of betrayal. If that were the case, though, he wouldn't have thrown the team's preparations into utter disarray on the eve of the World Cup.

As Sergio Ramos said, "Instability never makes for a good companion." That wasn't hindsight either; just common sense.

Mesut Ozil being made the scapegoat for Germany's shock first-round elimination in Russia was as inevitable as it was unfair.

The backlash began the moment he and Ilkay Gundogan were pictured with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan the day before Joachim Low named his World Cup squad.

Despite being booed in Germany's penultimate warm-up match, against Austria, Ozil was included in the starting line-up for Germany's opener against Mexico but he was then left on the bench for the subsequent meeting with Sweden – the first time he had ever been dropped for a match at a major tournament since making his debut at South Africa 2010.

The Arsenal attacking midfielder returned for the crucial clash with South Korea but, despite being his nation's most dangerous player, he was widely slated for his performance in the shock 2-0 loss. Ozil, though, created 11 chances in just 180 minutes of game time, only one fewer than Belgian winger Eden Hazard (12), who has played in three more matches at the time of writing.

Furthermore, it was not Ozil's fault that Germany's striking options were Timo Werner and Mario Gomez.

It was not Ozil's fault that Leroy Sane was left out of the squad.

It was not Ozil's fault that Sami Khedira was a spent force in midfield.

It was not Ozil's fault that Jerome Boateng was so bad that Germany performed better with 10 men than with him on the field.

It was not Ozil's fault that Low not only selected a half-fit Manuel Neuer but also elected to use him as a left winger for the final minutes of the Korea debacle.

It was not Ozil’s fault that Germany flopped.

So, for both German Football Association (DFB) president Reinhard Grindel and national team public relations manager Oliver Bierhoff to suggest that Ozil was somehow to blame was utterly unforgivable.

"The situation is absurd," Ozil's father Mustafa said. "He loves Germany and has shown commitment to his country, that he’s presented as a scapegoat is so unfair."

Egyptian Football Association board member Essam Abdel Fattah was enraged by a CNN story that Mohamed Salah was set to quit the national team.

“This is a big lie," he told Goal. "Nothing like this is true and I wonder how CNN are reporting these things."

Fake news or not, there's no denying that the Egyptian FA have made a real mess of their relationship with their star player. First, before the World Cup had even begun, there was the unseemly squabble over image rights.

Then came the calamitous campaign itself, which was overshadowed by claims that Salah, who should have been left alone to focus on his recovery from a shoulder injury, had instead been used as a pawn in a game of politics and public relations run by his own FA.

There were even reports that his precious down time at the team hotel was being interrupted by requests to perform meet-and-greets with visiting celebrities and dignitaries from Egypt. Whereas Salah's fitness should have been the only issue for the nation's fans during their first World Cup since 1990; instead the winger's state of mind became far more worrying.

Indeed, some supporters became so concerned by mounting speculation that Salah had decided to walk away from the whole mess after Egypt's first-round elimination, they turned up at his house to plead with him to play on.

The 26-year-old Liverpool ace reassured them by saying, "It's not over." However, he then warned, "There needs to be change."

When asked by Omnisport why so few Denmark fans had travelled to the World Cup, former national team goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen mused, "Maybe there's a little bit of fear. There's been a lot of talk about politics in Russia and maybe people are a little bit afraid of taking families over there."

As a result, fans from several major European nations have been conspicuous by their absence. Indeed, it felt like there were more Belgian shirts on the pitch than in the crowd when the Red Devils played Panama at the Fisht Stadium on matchday two.

By contrast, thousands of supporters flocked to Russia from central and South America to support the likes of Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil. If this had been a fans' World Cup, there most certainly wouldn't have been four European sides in the semi-finals.

The shame is that fear need not have been a factor in attendances.

Of course, ethical concerns could also have been an issue and whether the World Cup ever should have been awarded to Vladimir Putin's Russia remains highly debatable. However, what is beyond dispute is that the Russian people have been wonderful hosts.

The locals have been warm and welcoming, always willing to rush to Google Translate to rescue a conversation that had crashed into a language barrier. There have also been returned lost or forgotten wallets, phones and credit cards.

The cynics will say it's all an act but that's easy to say from miles away. It hasn't been an act. It has been a concerted effort by the Russian people to use this unique opportunity to show the outside world who they really are.

They have made the absolute most of it, proving proud but humble hosts. There was never anything to fear.

"We are all the same; we are just like you," one Russian supporter told Goal on the day of the quarter-final clash with Croatia. "We are all football fans."

For many, Diego Maradona remained a humorous character going into the World Cup. However, amusement quickly gave way to embarrassment, which then gave way to pity.

Arguably the greatest footballer of all time has become the poster boy for the worst excesses of fame. He is car-crash TV; a tragic accident waiting to happen.

There were fears for his health in Russia long before pictures emerged of him requiring medical attention after Argentina's dramatic and decisive group-stage win over Nigeria.

Some wondered if he would still be around to watch his beloved Albiceleste play France in the last 16. From everything we know, from everything we have seen, this is not a man of healthy body or mind.

His behaviour, his outbursts, have become increasingly erratic. The sight of him giving Nigeria fans the finger after Marcos Rojo's late winner against the Super Eagles was shameful.

His subsequent claim that Colombia had been the victims of a "great theft" against England was farcical.

And there's the rub: Maradona has become a laughing stock but the very real concern is that this will all soon end in tears. We can but hope that he gets the medical help he so clearly needs.</s>Jorge Sampaoli has stepped down as Argentina head coach following their disappointing World Cup campaign.

Sampaoli took over a year ago charged with putting together a side to first reach the 2018 World Cup in Russia and then mount a challenge for the trophy.

Argentina, thanks largely to the brilliance of Lionel Messi, qualified for the tournament with a win in their last match.

However, they scraped out of their group thanks to a late Marcos Rojo winner in their final match against Nigeria, and were beaten 4-3 by eventual winners France in the last 16.

"The Argentine Football Association [AFA] and the ex-coach of the national team Jorge Sampaoli today reached a mutual agreement to rescind his contract," the AFA said in a statement on Sunday.

The AFA thanked 58-year-old Sampaoli and his assistants, who have also left their positions, for their services.

The decision means that Argentina, world champions in 1978 and 1986, are looking for their fourth coach in four years.

The split with Sampaoli, who led Chile to the Copa America title in 2015 with victory over Argentina in the final, was expected even though he had a contract until 2022.

He inherited an ageing squad under a chaotic soccer federation and never looked like putting his stamp on a side that was inconsistent for most of his tenure.

It means Argentina - who have had three different coaches since Alejandro Sabella led them to the World Cup final in 2014 - are back to square one in their search for a first major international title since winning the Copa America in 1993.

Tottenham coach Mauricio Pochettino, Atletico Madrid's Diego Simeone and River Plate's Marcelo Gallardo are among the coaches mentioned by local media as possible replacements.

Another two Argentines, Jose Pekerman, who managed Colombia in Russia, and Ricardo Gareca, who took Peru to their first World Cup in 36 years, have also been tipped as possible candidates along with Jorge Almiron of Atletico Nacional and Matias Almeyda, who recently stood down at Mexican club Chivas.
Two vessels deliver 25 survivors and one Peruvian corpse from Spanish ship MV Dorneda to ports in Argentina and Patagonia. One crewman remains missing after the fishing trawler sank off Argentina.