After all, it’s hardly the ideal preparation when you want to retain 4th place challenge for the Premier League title. It had appeared that Javier Mascherano was dead set on representing the nation of Argentina at the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer. However, The Guardian reports that Reds manager Rafael Benitez appears confident of getting across to the player that this really isn’t a competition that you’ll be telling the grandchildren about.
Benítez will ask his £18.6m signing to put club before country. The Liverpool manager is resigned to losing Brazil’s Lucas to the Olympics, plus the reserve winger Sebastian Leto with Argentina. “We will try to find a solution with Mascherano that will be the best for the club and the best for the player,” Benítez said.
Is that the Spaniard’s way of saying ‘We’ll remind Javier of how much money we pay him and where his priorities should lie. After all, this isn’t exactly the World Cup or even the Copa America for goodness sakes.”
Still, good news for Liverpool fans as you don’t exactly want one of your best players to be jet-lagged when the season gets under way. It’s a long old campaign as it is.