It was back to ....

Question

Hi everyone;
Can anybody tell me the exact meaning of the following sentence?
"It was back to the press conference soundbites for Maradona in the lead up to the last-16 game against Mexico, whose profile was arguably even greater than that of the squad he was managing".

For example: what does "it" refer to in the following expression: " It was back to…." and what is the meaning of "profile"?

Here is the full context. It is about the Argentina football team – whose manager was the late Diego Maradona - campaign in FIFA World Cup 2010:
"Argentina’s on-field campaign started off in a far more understated fashion than the media sideshows. Defender Gabriel Heintze’s early goal was enough to see off a tricky Nigeria side in the opening group game. That was followed by a far more impressive 4-1 win over South Korea, inspired by a Gonzalo Higuaín hat-trick. A 2-0 victory over Greece saw La Aalbiceleste through to the knockout phase as winners of Group B. It was back to the press conference soundbites for Maradona in the lead up to the last-16 game against Mexico, whose profile was arguably even greater than that of the squad he was managing. The ball, it would seem, was of most concern to the manager: “This ball is useless. It’s impossible to control.” His team didn’t seem to have too any problems with the ball against Mexico, though, running out 3-1 winners in their most impressive performance of the tournament".

Thanks in advance.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Mahmoud 2003Can anybody tell me the exact meaning of the following sentence? "It was back to the press conference soundbites for Maradona in the lead up to the last-16 game against Mexico, whose profile was arguably even greater than that of the squad he was managing".

That is sports journalism. It has a style all its own. It uses oblique references, insider jokes and jock jargon whenever possible, making it entertaining for the aficionado but puzzling for the rest of us.

Mahmoud 2003For example: what does "it" refer to in the following expression: " It was back to…."

That is a dummy "it". "It was back to X (for someone)" is a common expression meaning that the someone must resign himself to redoing X. An often-seen form is "it's back to the drawing board". This sportswriter has used the expression somewhat inaptly because the soundbites do not help Maradona's team to win.

Mahmoud 2003It was back to the press conference soundbites for Maradona

Maradona was subjected once again to a grilling by the press

Mahmoud 2003in the lead up to the last-16 game against Mexico

in the time between their previous game and their next, which would be a tournament elimination against Mexico.

Mahmoud 2003whose profile was arguably even greater than that of the squad he was managing

Maradona was perhaps of more interest to the sports journalists and the fans than his team was. His profile was the amount of publicity he got.

GPY · Answer

Mahmoud 2003what does "it" refer to in the following expression: " It was back to…."

It's a dummy "it", so it doesn't refer to any specific thing. The meaning of the first part is basically something like "Maradona went back to (issuing) press conference soundbites ...", i.e. he repeated or reverted to previous behaviour. The inverted structure with "It was ... for ..." is a stylistic choice.

Mahmoud 2003what is the meaning of "profile"?

"profile" is used in sense 3 at https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/profile:

"The extent to which a person or organization attracts public notice."

I.e., Maradona attracted even more attention than the squad.

The sentence as a whole is faulty because grammatically "whose" appears to refer to Mexico, yet from the overall meaning we can see that it is supposed to refer to Maradona.

It was back to ....

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