Juan Roman Riquelme

It seemed that the 2006 World Cup quarter-final between Argentina and Germany was the last football fans would see of Juan Roman Riquelme in the famous blue and white stripes of Argentina as he announced his retirement from the international game shortly afterwards, but happily for all lovers of the beautiful game new Argentine manager Alfio Basile coaxed Riqueleme out of retirement and has since been rewarded with some of Riquelme's most imperious performances ever for the national team.

Riquelme started his career with Boca Juniors in 1996/7 scoring 4 goals in 22 league matches, he enjoyed a further 5 seasons with the Argentine giants, the 1999/2000 season the undoubted highlight when Boca Juniors beat Palmeiras of Brazil 4-2 on penalties to lift the Copa Libertadores and then defeated Real Madrid 2-1 in Tokyo to take the Inter Continental Cup. He left Boca at the end of the 2001/2002 season to join Barcelona, incredibly however he was deemed surplus to requirements at the Camp Nou and after one largely unhappy season joined Villareal for the 2003/4 season. Riquelme, almost immediately seemed to thrive in the more compact El Madrigal stadium scoring 8 goals from 33 league matches and also playing a pivotal role in the club's semi-final run to the UEFA Cup where they were narrowly defeated by Valencia 1-0 on aggregate. In 2004/5 Riqueleme was quite simply one of the best players in La Liga, scoring 15 goals in 35 league matches, including a hat trick against Valencia as Villareal finished 3rd their highest ever position in La Liga and they also enjoyed another fine run in the UEFA cup before being edged out 3-2 on aggregate by AZ Alkmaar in the quarter final.

Villareal were now one of La Liga's most watchable sides and the 2005/6 season they continued to play some wonderful entertaining football with Riquelme at the fulcrum of their best moves, he scored 12 goals in 25 league games though villareal only managed a 7th place finish as they were understandably sidetracked by their extraordinary run in the Champions League where they reached the semi-final only to be foiled by Arsenal, heartbreakingly Riquelme had the opportunity to take the second leg into extra time but his last minute penalty was expertly saved by Arsenal's German keeper Jens Lehmann. After that it was all something of an anti-climax for Riquelme at Villareal, he managed only 1 goal in 13 matches in the 2006/7 season before heading back to Argentina to rejoin Boca Juniors playing a key role in the Copa Libertadores win against Gremio scoring in both legs of the final as Boca won 5-0 on aggregate, he then left to join Villareal for the 2007/8 season but a dispute with manager Pellegrini meant he played little first team football.

Riquelme made his international debut in 1997 against Colombia and scored his first goal against Libya in 2003, however it wasn't until 2004 that he really established himself as a regular in the side. He enjoyed a tremendous run of form in the 2005 Confederations Cup, scoring goals againast Tunisia, Australia and Germany before Argentina were thrashed 4-1 in the final by Brazil. Argentina arrived at the 2006 World Cup as one of the favourites to lift the trophy and their performances in the group phase certainly justified this tag, the 6-0 thrashing of Serbia and Montenegro being undoubtedly the performance of the tournament. Mexico proved far more stubborn opposition but Argentina eventually emerged as 2-1 winners after extra time and then headed to Berlin for a quarter final clash with the hosts, however Argentina lost the game 4-2 on penalties, after leading 1-0 for most of the second half, the decision by Pekerman to withdraw Riquelme was seen by many as the reason for Argentina's demise. Riquelme ended his self imposed international retirement in time for the 2007 Copa America and was in sublime form scoring goals against twice against Colombia in the group stages and then notching another double against Peru in the quarter finals as Argentina marched serenly to the final, however there they were to meet their old nemesis Brazil who hammered them 3-0.

Argentina began the qualifying campaign for the 2010 World Cup in October and Riquelme was in outstanding form again on target twice against Chile as Argentina won 2-0 and then scored another brace against Bolivia as they ran out comfortable 3-0 winners, if Riquelme continues in this form he will obviously still be around at the 2010 World Cup and football fans all over the world will be delighted about that.