Those who would have Gareth Southgate out of a job might want to cast a glance the way of Argentina, a team led by a figure running an even greater charisma deficit than England’s wounded incumbent. When Lionel Scaloni assumed the role of head coach of the Albiceleste in 2018 after a year as assistant to Jorge Sampaoli, the late Diego Maradona observed: “He’s not even capable of directing traffic.”
Maradona’s genius for playing the game did not extend to management. His two-year spell in charge of the national team ended in a crushing 4-0 quarter-final defeat to Germany at the 2010 World Cup, where he believed a godly embrace from him as the players took to the pitch would be sufficient to guarantee victory. It would appear his judgment of coaches was equally flawed.
Scaloni engages in more earthly methods. Like Southgate, Scaloni did not have a particularly distinguished playing career. Capped just seven times by Argentina over a three-year period, he left a greater trace in La Liga, where he spent eight productive seasons as a domestique at Deportivo La Coruna before sliding briefly into West Ham’s DMs, which yielded 13 Premier League loan appearances in 2006, en route to Italy.
His success in leading Argentina to a first major trophy in 28 years with victory at last year’s Copa America is built on his relationship with Lionel Messi, which began with a text message after his elevation. Messi appeared done with the national team and the World Cup following the ignominious exit to France in the last 16 in Russia. Sitting alone with his thoughts in the dressing room contemplating a tournament that also included a group stage draw with Iceland and a 3-0 defeat to Croatia, Messi convinced himself his World Cup odyssey was over.
And then his phone pinged. “Hi Leo, I’m Scaloni. I’m with Pablo (Aimar), we want to talk with you.” Aimar, the former No 10 for River Plate, was one of three assistants appointed by Scaloni alongside Walter Samuel and former Argentina skipper Roberto Ayala. He was also Messi’s childhood hero.
The name drop of Aimar was demonstrative of Scaloni’s pastoral approach to his job. He wanted his approach to land softly. Messi also remembered how Scaloni threw a protective arm around him when their paths crossed briefly on the pitch during his volcanic debut for Argentina in 2005 aged just 17.
His international bow lasted all of 45 seconds, ending in a red card for a tackle on Hungary’s Vilmos Vanczak. “I was being fouled and then I pulled his shirt, he fell down and exaggerated his reaction,” Messi reflected. “I was in tears, but I remember Leo (Scaloni) and Juan (Pablo Sorin) protesting, pleading with the referee.”
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The World Cup final against France will be Scaloni’s 57th match in charge. His team boasts only one defeat in their last 42 games, and that in their opening match of Qatar 2022 against Saudi Arabia. Such is their confidence in him Argentina have extended his contract until the next World Cup in 2026. His low profile, combined with the sense of anomie felt in Argentina following the Russian World Cup gave Scaloni the freedom to attack the job unencumbered by expectation.
He began the rebuilding by introducing a youthful cohort with Messi at the core. Out went the likes of Javier Mascherano, Marcos Rojo, Ever Banega, Gonzalo Higuain and Lucas Biglia. In came a band of brothers prepared to run through walls for their boyhood hero.
In this model Messi is given the freedom and centrality he was allowed at Barcelona, where it was understood the formation was Messi plus 10. As Scaloni puts it, Messi sees football in a different plane. The players are wholly invested in a system that trusts him to deliver in key moments. So with the support of a manager and players who adore him, Messi has never felt so valued by the national team. Their reward is a level of drive and togetherness hitherto unseen in the Messi era.
Upwards of 30,000 have made the trip to Qatar to engage in a pageant central to the Argentinian experience. The team offers a kind of cultural legitimacy to its citizens, the imagined identity of Argentina inseparable from the Albiceleste. The blue and white flag of Argentina was first raised in Rosario, the city on the mighty Parana River that birthed the Messi legend.
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Lionel Messi rediscovers his Barcelona peak at just the right time to win the World Cup14 December, 2022Football was introduced to Argentina, as it was to Brazil, by imported English labour who built the rail network that led to the rapid economic growth of the late 19th century. Indeed the first match played in Buenos Aires was on a cricket pitch, permission being granted by its English owners. As the century turned the game broke free of its English influence into the barrios of Buenos Aires. Football and the tango grew together out of neighbourhoods like Boca, Once and Abasto, fluid and sensuous representations of something deeply felt, new ways to hustle out of poverty.
Buenos Aires is dotted with 36 football stadiums, the most of any city in the world, a reflection of the importance of the game to its people. Two hundred or so kilometres to the north west sits Rosario, a huge river hub exporting agricultural gold from the Pampas north to Brazil, east to Chile and to the rest of the world via the capital.
Messi cracked 234 goals for the youth team at Newell’s Old Boys, one of founding members of the Argentinian league and Rosario’s top club, before departing for Barcelona. A 230ft portrait gazes out from the side of an apartment block over the green space in the centre of the city. Messi is pictured in the No.10 shirt, his hand over his heart, a gesture that binds player and country, citizen and team into the fearsome entity facing France on Sunday.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/FM6Tg3d
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