Mexico soccer coach Ricardo La Volpe has rejuvenated and transformed the team in three-and-a-half years in charge and has upset half the country in the process. Only six members of the 2002 squad made the shortlist for the World Cup in Germany, the result of a painstaking process in which La Volpe went searching for promising young players who would not feel intimidated wearing the green shirt.
The gruff Argentine, a goalkeeper in his playing days, says the result is a younger, more versatile team, less inclined to suffer stage-fright and no longer dependent on the talent of one or two players. "We have managed to make young players shine. Nobody knew them before and, now, everyone's talking about them," he said, referring to players such as Francisco Rodriguez, Carlos Salcido, Gonzalo Pineda, Luis Perez and Omar Bravo.
Yet, despite some impressive results, La Volpe seems to court controversy wherever he goes.
He has been involved in an ongoing feud with Hugo Sanchez, the greatest player the country has produced, and has antagonised the critics by leaving out striker Cuauhtemoc Blanco and including the Brazilian-born Guillermo Franco and Antonio "Zinha" Naelson.
Perhaps his controversial move was to include his own son-in-law, Atlas midfielder Rafael Garcia, in the squad.
La Volpe played for Banfield and San Lorenzo in his homeland, made a handful of appearances for the national team, and was third-choice goalkeeper in the 1978 World Cup winning squad.
He moved to Mexico in 1979 to play for Atlante, before ending his playing days with Oaxtepec.
He began coaching with the same team the following year and progressed to the national side via eight other club sides including Guadalajara, Toluca and Atlas.
He is certainly likely to make a mark at the World Cup too as he is a lively performer in and around the dugout area and often watches matches wearing a combination of smart jackets, vivid ties and blue denims.
The television cameras will doubtless find him an entertaining act the more animated he becomes.

Boca Juniors capped its Argentine Apertura championship by defeating Olimpo Bahia Blanca 2-0 in the last round on Sunday at Bombonera stadium.Matias Silvestre scored off a header in the 14th minute and Rodrigo Palacio made it 2-0 in the 59th for a seventh straight win for Boca, which won the tournament last week.It was Boca's fourth cup in less than a year, after the South American Recopa and Copa Sudamericana, and the Clausura championship.Boca ended with 43 points, followed by Lanus with 35, River Plate with 34, Gimnasia Jujuy on 33, and Gimnasia La Plata at 32.River Plate defeated host Quilmes 3-1 in a match which was suspended in the 67th minute because of fan violence.Boca, Gimnasia La Plata, River, Banfield and Velez will play in the 2007 Copa Libertadores. The same teams plus Lanus and San Lorenzo will strive to wrest the Sudamericana from defending champion Boca.Instituto and Tiro Federal were relegated to second division.Argentinos Juniors and Olimpo will play with two teams from second division, and the two winners of the home-and-away series will play in the first division next season.

Herman Van Holsbeeck is looking for new talent in Argentina, and the 22-year-old Renato Civelli has caught his attention. Civelli is a central defender who is playing for French side Olympique Marseille on loan at the moment.Nevertheless, Banfield are the owners of the tall Argentinian defender. Also Olympique Marseille want to sign Civelli, but the transfer fee of 2.5 million euros seems to high for them

Lanus drew 0-0 Saturday with Velez Sarsfield. In other games Saturday, Gimnasia La Plata beat Newell's 3-2 to move into third place, p***ing River Plate, which fell to fourth with a 2-0 loss to Racing.
Elsewhere Sunday, it was: Banfield 3, Argentinos Juniors 1; Arsenal 1, Instituto 1; Tiro Federal 1, Quilmes 1; Olimpo 1, Gimnasia Jujuy 0.
Later Sunday, Estudiantes hosted Rosario Central and Colon visited San Lorenzo.
With striker Sergio Aguero suspended, Independiente set up two defensive lines and employed only one attacker. However, it was able to create and several runs down the flanks, forcing Argentine national team keeper Roberto Abbondancieri into acrobatic saves on shots by Esteban Bujan and Gaston Machin.
Rodrigo Palacio and Martin Palermo scored one goal apiece and traded ***ists for Boca. Palacio put the Buenos Aires side ahead in the 38th with a shot from outside the penalty area after a long p*** from Palermo, who added the insurance in the 47th with a header off a cross by Palacio.
In the oldest derby in Argentine soccer, Racing beat crosstown rival River Plate, which played with a mostly reserve team to rest its regulars for the first leg of Copa Libertadores quarter-finals against Paraguay's Libertad on Thursday.
Maximiliano Moralez headed in a cross from Juan Manuel Torres in the 38th, and Claudio Fileppi made it 2-0 in injury time.
River midfielder Lucas Pusineri was red-carded in the 88th.

Winger Daniel Bilos, who plays for Argentine league team Boca Juniors, told sports broadcaster TyC Sports on Wednesday that he still dreams of being called up for Argentina's World Cup team.
The World Cup, "is a dream I hope comes true, although it is difficult. There is not much time left and the manager has little time to try out new players," he said.
Bilos, 25, has rejected the call up from Croatia, where his grandparents were born, despite repeated entreaties from Croatia national soccer team manager Zlakto Kranjcar.
Bilos played 45 minutes of November's friendly Argentina, Qatarmatch, in the Qutari capital, Doha, but his performance has suffered since that date and he was never summoned by Pekerman.
However, on Sunday, when Boca massacred Estudiantes 4-0, Bilos showed the form he had shown when he first arrived at Boco, tranferred from Banfield, in the middle of 2005.
"I had a bad patch, but these things happen to everyone. The same thing happened to me in Banfield, but it was not so imporant. Luckily, things began to turn out for me again when I got to Boca.I hope to stay this way," he said.

Serie B club Catania have approached Liverpool about their new signing Gabriel Paletta.
Liverpool signed Paletta from Argentina's Banfield betting earlier this year and manager Rafa Benitez is keen to have him join preseason on Merseyside. Paletta carries an Italian passport, which means there will be no work permit problems for the young centre-half.
However, Catania hope to convince Liverpool to let them take Paletta on a 12-month loan for next season.

The last line of the UANL Tigres hymn goes something like this: With pride and with honor, together we go to victory, the team and their fans.
TO WIN!...
Goalkeeper Edgar Hernandez’s will and Carlos Ramirez’s timely goal helped the university squad do just that, as they edged Universidad Catolica 1-0 and moved through to the Copa Libertadores final sixteen.
The feline goalkeeper was a key player in the narrow qualification to the knockout stages of the most prestigious Latin American soccer club competition, proving last year’s quarterfinals run was no fluke.
Cubs’ 2005 Roar
One of the youngest teams in First Division, as they were born in 1958, the Nuevo Leon Autonomous University’s first international appearance ever was just last year.
They won the Interliga tournament in the US and hit the ground running into the Copa Libertadores, getting out of a tough group which included seasoned international competitors such as Peru’s Alianza Lima and Argentina’s Banfield.
Then the upstart cubs upset ’04 champs, Colombia’s Once Caldas to make it to the quarterfinals, where they fought bravely against the eventual champions, Sao Paulo.
No fluke
Proving last year’s romp was no joke, the cats won the Interliga tournament again, this time beating Nuevo Leon nemesis, Monterrey.
Tigres won arguably the best game of the tournament, a 5-4 track meet against Colombian Deportivo Cali at home after staring at an 0-2 deficit.
In their most complete game, they shut down high-powered Corinthians, knocking out Argentine ace Carlos Tevez in the process.
Pulling out all the stops
Needing a win to qualify, as the Chileans had a 10-7 points edge, Hernandez did the unthinkable:
Late in the game he left his net to help the team score the winning goal, which motivated them to do just that against a pesky U Catolica, a few minutes into injury time.
“You don’t think about it, suddenly you’re motivated, and it’s those small things that build the team’s confidence,” said Hernandez. “I think everyone’s efforts were rewarded by our qualifying.”
One of the most consistent of all the Tigres, Hernandez said he checked with his manager “Tuca” Ferreti before taking off. “He turned his head, checked the clock, then gave me the sign to go.” He added that scoring a goal would’ve been nice but injecting enthusiasm into his team was equally important.”
Carlos Ramirez, who is getting used to coming through in the clutch, and scored the crucial goal, gave credit to his teammate, Julio Cesar Santos, for setting him up.
“Half the goal is his (Santos’s) and half mine,” said Ramirez, adding that the team is not done. “There’s still work to do, all we did was advance to the next round.”
Glad about seeing the fans’ enthusiasm, Ramirez modestly quipped, “I’m not the hero, we are all heroes.”
Tuca
For the Tigres coach, Brazilian born Ricardo Ferreti, the team had the ability to win all along, they just lacked the aggressiveness to put away the opponent.
Tuca knows about winning: as one of Mexico’s most winning active coaches, he was the last coach to win a championship with Chivas of Guadalajara in ’97, before winning a pair of championships in Toluca, and was a player/coach with UNAM when they won it all in ‘90/91.
“It was a painful win because it came in the stoppage time, but I think the team always had the ability in their hands,” said Ferreti, who refused to comment on which tournament the team will focus on.
“In the second half we had other chances, and finally, when we thought it was all over, we made the play and got the ticket. It would have been unfortunate had we not made it.”
Sweet Sixteen
With a healthy ‘Chamagol’, who has three goals in the tournament, Walter Gaitan as stout as ever in the middle, and the always tough Hernandez minding the nets, the Tigres can give Libertad fits, the only question is whether they’ll be able to do it in Paraguay, away from Universitario Stadium.
Just like last year, we’ll once again see the ferocious Tigers show their fangs in the quarterfinals.