“I’m really delighted with Mauro. He was outstanding with his dribbling skills today. He was superb entertainment. You pick up contacts in the game who help to find you a player like Mauro. I had only seen him on video before I came here when I was manager of Scotland. I watched the FIFA under-20 tournament in which he scored the winning goal in the final and you could see that he is a fantastic talent. He has got a great future ahead of him and, hopefully, if we retain our Premier League status, we can talk to Zarate about staying on for another season.” – Birmingham City boss Alex McLeish.

Following his two-goal haul in Birmingham’s 3-1 win over Manchester City on Saturday, headline writers have been under pressure to use Mauro Zarate’s name in the most eye-catching way possible. The Sky Sports headline “Take that and Zarate!” is pretty good going and The Guardian website’s effort, “Zarate kid fires for McLeish,” wasn’t bad either. But you can be sure that this is not the last time we see Zarate’s name up in lights after a match-winning display.

His two goals were massive in Birmingham’s fight against the drop and both were stylish finishes. The first was a little dink over Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart and the second was a fine, drilled strike into the far post.

‘Sadly for the Midlands club, every time he scores the price tag goes up. At the last count Zarate will cost £15million...’


If Birmingham do stay up then McLeish should receive the credit for one of the buys of the season. And we should expect Premier League football to be played at St Andrews next season. Since the arrival of McLeish, Birmingham have played some excellent football.

With a stronger attack than defence, Brum go for it and have been rewarded with some quality results. The club even appears to have shaken off the Martin Taylor/Eduardo incident, and the former Scotland manager has been praised in recent weeks for his handling of the situation.

Zarate has announced himself to the English Premier League with three goals in the last two matches, but followers of international youth football have known about the 21-year-old Argentinian for a few years now. Zarate scored the winning goal in the final of 2007 FIFA under-20 World Cup, in Argentina’s 2-1 win over the Czech Republic. The other scorer in the final was Sergio Aguero who has been a revelation in La Liga at Atletico Madrid so far this season and, along with Lionel Messi, Argentina have an embarrassment of riches in young. diminutive attacking players.