Menotti, Bilardo and Scaloni. Obviously, the World Cup is named after Leo Messi. Also from Dibu. But behind it all there is a silent leadership of the coach who took over the national team four years ago, on an interim basis, and has finally managed to get Messi to lift the World Cup. Scaloni, without bullshit, without empty verbiage, without imposed speeches, has managed to create a united group. And in terms of football, he has built a team that has gone from strength to strength, despite the emotional burden the players carry: the weight of an entire country, the incessant comparisons with Maradona.
With his decisions, Scaloni has found the key for Argentina to end up playing the best football in the infamous World Cup in Qatar – we will not stop repeating it; that and the cowardice of the footballers for not having any gesture with the Iranian Amir Nasr Azadani–. With the bet on Enzo, Mac Allister and Julián Alvarez, who were not starters at the start, and leaving more renowned players like Paredes or Lautaro on the bench, Scaloni has written his name among the greatest. But also because he blindly believed in De Paul, for example, widely criticized by everyone in the group stage and whom he still kept. And he did very well. De Paul became a generous defender, lungs for Messi.
The image that best reflects what Scaloni has built is from before the game: the players albicelestes arriving at the stadium by coach singing, laughing, happy, convinced of what they were going to do, as if the pressure didn’t exist, as if they were going to a party to have fun. Here they started to win the World Cup. But there is a second image beyond Messi’s iconic snaps. When Montiel takes the decisive penalty, Scaloni, with his arms folded, remains undeterred on the sidelines. With tears in his eyes, with a slight smile as his assistants come to hug him. Scaloni doesn’t go crazy, he doesn’t enter the pitch to celebrate with the group. He simply sits on the bench, lonely, thoughtful, and cries. The tears of a normal person.
During Messi’s heyday at club level, the Argentine won nothing with thealbiceleste, but lost three finals, two America’s Cups and a World Cup. To the point where he was dubbed “coldchest” and left the national team for a few months. And, as life is, in the era of decline – in the case of Messi, of less exuberance -, the former player has lifted a Copa América in Maracaná and, with 35 years, a World Cup.Successes that also bear Scaloni’s stamp: this was not the best Argentina, but it was the one that best interpreted what Messi needed.
