Argentina’s national soccer coach Lionel Scaloni started with the greatest possible criticism, mocked by the legend Maradona. Without superstar Lionel Messi, he first forms a functioning team, then the world star comes along. In the end, they all become world champions together.
Lionel Scaloni certainly didn’t have it easy. Argentina’s national soccer coach started with an unimaginable mortgage. Because one man in particular was not on his side: Diego Armando Maradona. He finished off him in front of the entire Argentine public. It was the football legend’s quote that was dug up again and again at this World Cup. Ex-professional Scaloni is a “great muchacho”, but can’t even regulate the traffic. “How can we hand the national team over to him – are we all crazy?” Maradona asked in 2018.
Who would have thought that four years after Maradona said those phrases, Argentina would go really crazy. Namely after the Argentine national team. Scaloni and his team ensured that hundreds of thousands of celebrating Argentines lined the streets on Sunday evening. The triumph in the World Cup final against France (4-2 on penalties) rightly goes down in the history books primarily as the success of Lionel Messi, but the 44-year-old coach also played his part.
Scaloni’s career really doesn’t read like that of a great coaching icon, that’s what Maradona was aiming for. The Argentina coach had never previously coached a club, let alone a national team. He had gotten around as an active professional, signing up in Spain, England and Italy. At the 2006 World Cup, he himself played alongside Messi and was eliminated together with him in the Berlin Olympic Stadium against Germany in the quarter-finals. Later he was assistant coach under Jorge Sampaoli, first during his tenure at FC Sevilla, then later video analyst for the Argentine national team.
But his boss messed up the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Argentina were knocked out by France (3:4) in the round of 16. This also ended Sampaoli’s tenure, which the association had previously bought for a lot of money. Now a cheaper solution should come: Lionel Scaloni. He only came for a few games, then permanently. With the new coach, however, an old concern remained. After the early World Cup exit, Lionel Messi left open whether he would resign from the national team.
This created a problem that Scaloni and his assistant coach Pablo Aimar, Messi fan and ex-professional himself, were also aware of. Messi can turn a game in a matter of seconds with a stroke of genius, but that alone is not enough to form a great team. The Argentinian superstar has hardly won a title in international club football since 2015. Even he could not stop the gradual decline of the great FC Barcelona.
Scaloni and his assistant coach Aimar therefore spoke to Messi in late summer 2018. In an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Scaloni said what he said to him: “Leo, we will take over the selection for these games and we want to let you know that the doors are open – but that it might be better if you don’t come first.” First of all, a functioning team should be created as a foundation, only then should Messi come along.
It is this style that distinguishes Scaloni, say companions such as Miroslav Klose. “He just has this human and this warmth, and I think that’s how he leads Argentina,” the World Cup record scorer recently told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. Both played together for the Italian first division club Lazio Rome from 2011 to 2013.
In his biography “Miro”, Klose remembers the restaurant evenings he spent with the former defender, and talks about tactics or training content. Even then he thought more deeply than a player, said Klose. Scaloni’s probably greatest work, however, is the unity that he formed from Messi and Co. “When you see how they stand up for each other: that’s exactly his work,” said Klose. In the Argentine national team, the results also followed: The Albiceleste went into the tournament with a series of 36 games without defeat. In addition, Scaloni satisfied Argentina’s 28-year longing for the title and won the Copa America in summer 2021 with a 1-0 win over Brazil.
With a lot of tailwind, Scaloni traveled to Qatar, which has already fulfilled a dream for Messi with the Copa. But then the doubts came back. For a brief moment it looked as if he would fail after all. The World Cup opener against Saudi Arabia was perhaps the biggest disgrace of the tournament. Argentina lost 2-1 to their Qatari neighbors. It was also a big test for the coach.
Scaloni’s reaction was radical. He switched and took the young Julian Alvarez and Enzo Fernandez into the team. Both paid back with strong bets. Alvarez, nicknamed the “spider”, tore off the meters in the storm that Messi could not or did not want to run. The 21-year-old Fernandez, who repeatedly dictated play in front of the back line, was later voted Young Player of the Tournament. Argentina’s future belongs to you.
In the final, Scaloni suddenly pulled winger Angel di Maria out of his hat. Before the game, it was unclear if he would be able to play at all. The French were completely taken by surprise by his deployment. The plan with the 34-year-old worked out perfectly. Di Maria constantly pressured and overwhelmed Jules Koundé and Ousmane Dembélé’s side. He, who missed the 2014 World Cup final injured, wrote his own heroic story. With one of his dribbles, he took the penalty that made it 1-0. Di Maria himself made it 2-0 after a world champion counterattack. And so the World Cup final would have been decided after almost 60 minutes if this spectacularly good Mbappé had not played for France.
In the end, Scaloni was still successful. He’s perhaps the Argentinian who’s had the most thankless job of the tournament. The team entered the tournament to fulfill Lionel Messi’s big dream of winning the World Cup. If that hadn’t worked, then after all the criticism that Scaloni received at the beginning, depending on how things went, it would have stuck with his coaching career. But that probably doesn’t bother him, he’s known for always standing by his side with a tracksuit. He is not a self-promoter, not a wild eccentric. In the end, the hymns of praise are rightly written about the world star Lionel Messi, who rounded off his unfinished career. But it was also Scaloni who had a big part in it.