It does not matter the same to win or not a prize, but lionel scaloni You know you made history. And not taking a single season. The FIFA award may be the icing on the cake, the stroke that completes the rounding of the circle, but the work was built and will remain in the showcase forever, until eternity. In 2022, the Argentine team broke the 36-year drought without winning the World Cup. And the leader who commanded the group was the coach who this Monday, at the gala of The Best, raised the statuette for the best DT. He beat Carlo Ancelotti and Pep Guardiola. A symbol. Nothing will match the emotion that the coach felt in that hug with Leonardo Paredes after beating France in the final in Qatar. That explosion of happiness and uncontrollable emotion.
Everything happened within the framework of the confirmation that Scaloni will continue as coach of the Argentine team until 2026. The news was published hours before the award ceremony on the team’s Twitter account. Actually, both parties (leaders of the AFA and the coaching staff) wanted to renew, but there were details to be polished.
As soon as his name was heard, he got up and greeted his children, happy as if it were a new World Cup. She shook hands with the stars who were sitting in front, between them, to Leo Messi, who got up and gave him a touching hug. Next to her was Mbappé, who greeted him courteously. Then it was time for words. After receiving the award from a legend, Fabio Capello, Scaloni said: “Thank you all for the award, especially the players, because they vote for it. I value it a lot. And above all to the Argentine players, without them we would not have achieved anything. To the president of the AFA, for giving me the chance to lead the team. Also to my coaching staff, eternally grateful for what we had to experience in Qatar. And as I always say, there is nothing more beautiful than seeing your people, your country, happy. Seeing that on the streets is priceless. The players have played for them. The win is for them.”
Scaloni had reached the list of best DT of 2022 along with Carlo Ancelotti, from Real Madrid, and Pep Guardiola, from Manchester City. The 63-year-old Italian, who has just dedicated himself to Madrid in the Club World Cup, took over the last edition of the Champions League with heroic edging. For his part, Guardiola was nominated for his great task at Manchester City, which won the last Premier League. Was Scaloni up to it? Of course, because his hand and work methodology, added to his decisions during the Qatar tournament, gave the team a boost. Scaloni was not a witness, he was the protagonist for the great feat. And, it is known, a World Cup is not won every day.
But Scaloni’s work goes beyond the World Cup. Because the creation of the mystique that he knew how to have the national team began to take shape with the 2021 Copa América and the final won no less than Brazil, at the Maracana. And then he continued with the identification of people with the way the team plays. First the identification, then the successes, the matches won. In the middle, the Finalissima won against Italy in London. So, perhaps for some, what Carlo Ancelotti did as manager of Real Madrid in 2022 and in that historic Champions League, could compete equally with Scaloni. But if you add the conquests of Scaloni himself in such a short time…
I speak in the third person. There are three coaches who have had great success this season and I think all three deserve to win. Win just one. Whoever doesn’t win it, he won’t have to do anything other than congratulate the one he wins, ”Ancelotti had said in the preview.
Carletto had praised the team after Argentina’s conquest in Qatar: “It was a great tournament and it ended with a beautiful final. Argentina deserved to win. He did it for two reasons: because he has good players and the best, and because this quality was supported with new ones, like Julián Álvarez and Enzo Fernández. France and Argentina based their victories on a good defense and on the quality of the soccer players, ”he said in dialogue with Rai Radio 1.
Speaking of Scaloni, he said: “He did an extraordinary job.” The funny thing is that he later stressed that he “did not do anything new”, and that “he only put the players in their place and gave them a good defensive organization”. It seems somewhat simplistic or not very flattering for his colleague, but the truth is that Ancelotti is like that. Perhaps he feels that one of the best compliments that can be given to him would be to define him as he manifested himself about Scaloni.
In April 2022, Guardiola had already highlighted Scaloni. In an interview for Telemundo Sports, the Manchester City coach was asked about the high level shown by the national team despite questions about the lack of experience of the coaching staff. In this regard, the Spaniard maintained: “It is all a big football lie, it is a lie that experience is useful: the one that served you yesterday does not serve you today. The illusion of young people like (Lionel) Scaloni, (Pablo) Aimar and the people they have gave the group what they needed. Enough, it worked. Because? It’s a mystery”.
And he had also referred to the change in the mentality of the Argentine team, which long before the start of the World Cup had acquired a feeling of unbeatableness that would later serve to gain momentum in Qatar: “The fact of winning the Copa América gives any group a feeling of ‘we did it’ and I’m sure that will help in the World Cup. I’ve seen little of Scaloni’s team, but they haven’t lost for a long time and that feeling that you’re winning and not losing is giving you strength and unbeatability”.
Carlo Ancelotti, a man of a thousand battles, lives his hour of glory at Real Madrid after his team turned the game around with Liverpool in England after losing 0-2 and being closer to losing by a landslide than reversing history, but in the end it was 5-2 for the Spanish team. He has won many titles in his career, but what he earned the most was respect, from his managers and colleagues around the world. During the week, they asked him about his future and he was again very clear, as always: “I do, yes (I will continue). I am quite calm, ”the Italian said at a press conference, that he has a contract until June 2024. I do not have to renew, it is something that has been done. I only have to do one thing, win games, ”he said in statements released by the AFP agency. And he even allowed himself to joke about the current situation of the team, since Ancelotti says that despite having one foot in the Champions League quarterfinals, he is not satisfied with everything that has happened this season: “I wanted to get to this moment with 8 points ahead (in the Spanish LaLiga), winning the Spanish Super Cup (whose final they lost to Barcelona in January in Saudi Arabia) and winning 5-0 at Anfield… So we haven’t done it perfectly. Jokes aside, I think we’re doing it right. The casualties in January cost us 6 points, but it was foreseeable (given the calendar)”, concluded the DT who this Saturday equalized in the classic against Atlético de Madrid del Cholo Simeone 1-1.
Scaloni does not usually experience matches with the calm of Ancelotti, but he always praised the Italian as a role model: “The other day I was listening to a very good interview with Ancelotti, from one of the three best coaches in the world… And the guy He says that last year, before winning the Champions League, in a moment of meeting and chatting with the players, they began to talk about how to find the best solution to attack, how to improve Real Madrid… And he got together with the players chatted and they took the situation forward”, declared the DT in ‘Star+’. And he added: “For me, Ancelotti is a reference. Authoritarianism or ‘do this or nothing’, I don’t like it. Neither when he was a player nor now as a coach. It is important that, when we go out on the field, we all go together. Not five on one side and three on the other.”
To learn more about Scaloni’s thinking, his way of working and executing decisions and his admiration for Ancelotti, this sentence is worth: “It’s good that one analyzes oneself and thinks about what can be improved and talks about it with the players, because when the player He goes out on the field, he has to be convinced of what he is doing. There are few coaches, they are the top ones, who do what they say and if you don’t do it, you go outside. That’s easy to say, but hard to do. There are very few who can carry it out, because of what they represent, what they have won and because they come to the player in a way. There are others who look for it in another way: to take the player to their side, for the player to understand why and if something doesn’t work or they are not comfortable, to know why… I am one of those. If Ancelotti does it, why can’t I do it? Yes it is one of the best in the world. I go more along that line, which I think is the one that gives us results ”.
The Scaloni thing in the World Cup was really very good, and it was a consequence of the work he had been doing since the 2021 Copa América. A leadership different from that of Ancelotti and Guardiola, the satisfaction of having achieved an eternal work and, also, as a bonus, the pleasure of having won a FIFA award for the best manager of the year. Scaloni’s victory over Ancelotti and Guardiola in Paris is not worth a Cup, but it is another source of pride.
Christian Leblebidjian
The Nation – Argentina
GDA
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