The Santa Fe coach has revived an adrift Albiceleste and remade her world champion with Messi as the flag
Lionel Scaloni already sits on the throne once occupied by César Luis Menotti and Carlos Salvador Bilardo, apostles of two contradictory ways of looking at football and life. The Santa Fe coach, who took over the reins of Argentina after the World Cup debacle in Russia and with the rank of interim, revived the Albiceleste and returned it four years later to Olympus where Flaco and Narigón installed it.
Argentina, which took to the air as host in 1978 with Mario Alberto Kempes as flagship and again in Mexico’86, already by the hand of the god Maradona, sewed the third star on the chest of his shirt at the Qatari stadium in Lusail to the end of a final that ultimately elevates Leo Messi to the greatest footballer of all time and that brings a coach to the altars of the South American country with a theoretically inconspicuous but a right hand and a meteoric rise that went from sharing a dressing room with the genius of the Rosario to guide the greatest conquest of an unparalleled career.
Because Scaloni has managed to form a support group without edges in the service of a goal: give Messi the one title that was missing from his record and let him sit to the right of Diego. With a group of workers dedicated to the sacred task of enthroning the Rosario star, and the number ’10’ offering brilliant flashes of the supernova it is at age 35, Argentina has repositioned itself in the epicenter of the football planet , leaving only an anecdote the unexpected slip against Saudi Arabia with which he dishonorably opened a tournament that has been riveted with infinite grandeur.
At the age of 44, Scaloni has calmed a team that was going through stormy times after losing the World Cup final in Brazil’14 and then crashing in Russia four years later against Kylian Mbappé’s France in the round of 16. With a discreet but determined attitude, the former footballer of Deportivo, Racing de Santander or Mallorca, among others, has closed the bitter debate that began as a result of his appointment as Argentina coach, prompted by the reluctance that arose from his short experience at the bench.
Jorge Sampaoli’s assistant in Russia and then coach of the U-20 team, his promotion was seen by the press as a stopgap measure, a provisional appointment pending a more experienced coach to take over a team that was sinking to take. “Scaloni is a good boy, but he’s not even worth directing traffic. The problem is that one day he thinks he is a technician and wants to go to a World Cup. He can go to the World Cup if he wants to, but not football,” Maradona said of him, preferring Tata Martino to take control.
Possibly Messi thought the same. The then Barça footballer had had enough of the national team, the scene of constant disappointments and where he was viewed with suspicion, always a loser in the spiteful but inevitable comparison with Maradona. Scaloni held on as best he could, always biting his lip, because he had a clear plan.
His main goal was to convince Messi that Argentina’s present and future was through his boots. And to protect him as it should be. With old gladiators like Walter Samuel, Pablo Aimar and Roberto Ayala as his main assistants, he undertook a major renovation of the team and cast a spell on La Pulga so that they would once again attract the Albiceleste.
Soon after, his methodical and diplomatic nature had earned the respect of the locker room and the approval of the Rosario star. His first acid test came with the Copa América 2019. Argentina succumbed in the semi-finals, but gave a good image. Enough for the AFA to renew his contract for another try in 2020. There came Scaloni’s first stunner. With Messi already showing his teeth to the taste of the fervent Argentine fans, the Albiceleste beat Brazil in the final in Maracana with a goal from Ángel Di María to end a 28-year drought without tying the scepter . Soon after, he covered Italy in the ‘Finalissima’ played at Wembley and appeared in Qatar with a historic run of 36 games without defeat.
The coach suspected of a meager résumé on the bench whose first line he wrote in the Mallorcan Son Caliu cadet shortly after hanging up his boots in 2015 had silenced critics, but the last step was missing. The one who has conceded in a World Cup that places him alongside Menotti and Bilardo, 36 years after the last planetary conquest by the Albiceleste. Big words for El Caballo who, without making any noise, has made the ‘Scaloneta’ a fundamental part of the Argentine football dictionary. «I’m less excited than other days, but today I’m free. This team only makes me proud, it’s all theirs. I want to tell people to enjoy, because this is a historic moment,” he said after completing his magnum opus.
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
