Germany 0 Argentina 1

The international friendly between Germany and Argentina at the Allianz Arena, Munich on Wednesday March 3, 2010.

Written off by all, derided by most, Argentina will travel to South Africa this summer as the ultimate one-man team. That man, though, is not Lionel Messi, or Carlos Tevez, or Gonzalo Higuain, whose goal ended Germany’s year-long unbeaten streak.

The 11 players on the pitch, no matter how lofty their reputations or how divine their talent, are just a sideshow to Diego Armando Maradona.

The man who has lived his entire life in the spotlight is a chronic scene-stealer to this day. He was the star of the pre-match video montage, his appearance generated the loudest cheer as his team left their team hotel on Wednesday afternoon. Maradona is Argentina, their blessing and their curse.

That Argentina, under Maradona, are adrift in a welter of unrest and uncertainty, torn apart by a rift between manager and the technical director, Carlos Bilardo, has become a truism. They have scarcely been mentioned as contenders for South Africa, a side ordinarily regarded as the most intimidating of opponents reduced to the status of circus.

Such a damning assessment, on this evidence, may be somewhat prejudicial.

After trying out 104 players and more tactical systems than previously existed in the process of securing qualification - narrowly, to say the least - for the World Cup, Maradona, by hook or by crook, appears to have hit upon a combination that works.

His formation is, nominally, a 4-4-1-1, but it allows almost total fluidity in wide and attacking areas. His defence is, as should be expected from Argentina, is uncompromising, bordering on the brutal.

Traditionalists in the barrios of Buenos Aires may not be pleased by the abolition of the double defensive midfield pivot and the traditional schemer, the number 10, but what could easily be seen as wilful iconoclasm is not without merit.

Maradona’s system allows Messi to roam, as he does for Barcelona, and also permit’s the inclusion of the wondrously gifted Di Maria. It was the Benfica winger, the most coveted player in Europe, who broke the ebb and flow of an absorbing opening period with two flashes of inspiration of which Maradona himself would have been proud.

First, Di Maria spun free of his marker to receive a pass from Juan Sebastian Veron, a few days shy of his 35th birthday and still an incomparable master of the angled ball, skimmed two challenges, skirted Jerome Boateng and cracked a left-footed shot against Rene Adler’s crossbar.

A moment later, the winger’s first-time pass caught the lumbering Per Mertesacker flat-footed, Higuain chased, clipped the ball around the onrushing Adler and tapped home, just, from 35 yards.

He is not the only one among Maradona’s charges who possesses a glimmer of the craft that forged his legend. Messi may have again, in national colours, been quiet - perhaps the main concern for all those of an albiceleste persuasion - but in Veron, now surely too old to be known as a little witch, the magic remains undimmed.

Now at Estudiantes de la Plata, his first love, after his sojourn in Europe ended in anonymity, Veron is a player reborn. He scarcely misplaced a pass all evening and, a nod to his younger, more impetuous self, attempted to lob Adler from all of 40 yards, his shot dropping agonisingly wide.

Argentina, though, did not need a second, as their hosts struggled to create meaningful chances. All that was left was the sound of “Ole” ringing around the Allianz Arena’s vast dome, Maradona, effervescent on the bench, exulting in the sound. Never write off the ringmaster.