As Coach Argentina keep Batista despite early exit

Argentina said on Monday they would keep Batista on as coach despite their early Copa America exit.

14-time champions lost a quarter-final to Uruguay, now going for a 15th title, on a penalty shootout.

Since Humberto Grondona, sub-director of team affairs at the Argentine Football Association and the son of AFA president Julio Grondona, said the organisation would keep faith in the man who only officially replaced Diego Maradona six months ago.

There will be no “brusque changes – we never thought of going down that road,” said Humberto Grondona in an interview with Radio La Red.

“The technical staff have to have sufficient wisdom to draw conclusions” from the Copa failure to end a trophy drought stretching back to 1993.

“The future lies before us – the qualifiers (for the 2014 World Cup),” he added.

Grondona has been vilified in the press Conference for not seeming to know his best team – he chopped and changed after a poor start but still that did not prevent the Uruguay loss when Carlos Tevez missed the decisive spotkick to send the Uruguayans through a semi-final against Peru.