MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

From the hand of God to the Devil's blow.

Argentine British relations - at the popular level at any rate - face heightened tension following a European Cup soccer match between Manchester United and the Spanish club, Deportivo La Coruña played at Old Trafford on Wednesday night in which the skipper of the English soccer squad, David Beckham, was injured in a collision with Argentine born player Aldo Duscher and could be out of the forthcoming World Cup scheduled to open in eight week's time.

While the British popular press were giving the story front page coverage trying to establish whether Duscher's controversial tackle on Beckham was as conspiracy to keep the 26 year old Spice boy out of the forthcoming World Cup - in which Argentina and Britain are in the same group - the local press appears to have only hooked on to the story as result of the British interest.

The incident in which Duscher brings Beckham down in the midfield area was certainly covered by the Argentine press, the popular Crónica daily carried the story on page 13 under the headline "With a foot out of the World Cup". The daily Olé sports paper was the only one to give the story a twist by running a front page box under the headline "Don't cry for me, England" in reference to Andrew Lloyd Webber's leit motiv song from the musical Evita.

Despite giving it an above average coverage Olé limits its commentary to describing the events and quotes the Argentine player as saying "I don't even believe it was a foul".

Most of the interest the story picked up throughout the day came from the British press who appeared to be hell bent on in proving that Duscher had knowingly applied a "horror two footed tackle" on the English skipper to "knowingly knock him out of the World Cup and thus benefit Argentina's chances" as one popular press journalist confided with MercoPress.

As the day evolved the story picked up some sped but failed to gather the almost hysterical proportions of some of the British press who were seeking confirmation of all sort of weird and wonderful explanations for the challenge which knocked Manchester United's star Nº 7 out of the World Cup with suggestions that the whole incident was somehow linked to the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the 1982 South Atlantic war, or that Duscher - whose transfer rights are currently rated at 70 million pounds - had accepted a bribe to take a lunge at the British skipper.

In a conversation with the player's father, also named Aldo - a former amateur soccer player in his own right - who lives in the city of Esquel in the foothills of the Andes mountains in southern Patagonia, MercoPress enquired whether he had spoken to his son about the incident