Cesar Menotti: The Architect behind Argentina’s World Cup Triumph in Qatar 2022

Cesar Luis Menotti in a National Team training session along with Lionel Scaloni, Walter Samuel, Pablo Aimar, Roberto Ayala

Those who frequent the bowels of the Argentine team say that the genesis of the world champion team in Qatar 2022 was, in some way, in the Copa América in Brazil 2019. The team finished third after losing in one of the semifinals against Brazil, harmed by the arbitration of Ecuadorian Roddy Zambrano. And the words of César Menotti, General Director of the National Teams, were widely heard at that time by Claudio Tapia, the president of the AFA, to whom Flaco told that the best thing for Argentine football was the continuity of Scaloni in the national set. Menotti highlighted to Tapia a concept that he was always a friend of: the need to continue a “project” in which he believed.

These were times of questioning for Scaloni, especially from a sector of the press due to the unconvincing performance of the team in the first phase of that Copa América won by Brazil and because the coach had a hard time getting the changes right during the games.

“Menotti didn’t really like how the team played in the first games of that Copa América either, but he saw a future for the National Team and he let Tapia know, who ended up keeping him in office,” a person who told Infobae told He knows intimately the intimacy of the national team.

El Flaco used to have long talks with Scaloni and his three field assistants: Roberto Ayala, Pablo Aimar and Walter Samuel. He “had them hand in hand with any of the four and also in a group. “El Flaco was passionate about talking about football and he could spend hours and hours talking,” added the same source. He had a special affection for Aimar for three reasons: he knew how to admire him as a footballer, he always rescued his modesty and his underground profile, and he had empathy with him since he found out that the “Clown’s” middle name is César in homage to him.

Aimar himself verbalized it in 2020 in an interview he gave to The Coaches Voice site: “My middle name is César for Menotti. It’s like a joke in life to be able to sit with him. My father and a friend who was my coach always talked to me about Menotti and today, when they see a photo, they are surprised and tell me that they don’t believe I’m chatting with him. It is speaking with history itself.”

Ricardo, Aimar’s father, always told Pablo that Menotti knew how to play a game for Rosario Central in his native Río Cuarto against the local Estudiantes. It was on February 18, 1961, when Central beat Estudiantes 6-3 in a friendly match after overcoming a three-goal deficit.

César Menotti when he was General Director of the National Teams. EFE/Sebastian Meresman

Aimar’s father agreed with the style of offensive football that Menotti preached and transferred that taste to Pablo, who greatly enjoyed the talks he used to have with “Flaco” at the AFA grounds in Ezeiza.

If he felt appreciation and respect for Scaloni, he also felt admiration for Aimar from his time as a player: in private he used to sit him at the same table as Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi and René Houseman among the Argentines (he was full of praise for Pelé, the best of all for him).

Menotti and Scaloni’s was a relationship that started absolutely from scratch. Menotti always remembered that when Tapia asked him to offer the position to Scaloni, he arrived at the meeting “scared” because he did not personally know the world champion coach in Qatar 2022.

“When Tapia told me about Lionel Scaloni, I went to the meeting scared, because I didn’t know him. I was afraid when I met for the first time and that’s why I came to that meeting worried. As I say this, I also assure you that I didn’t like him when they offered him a contract of only five months, although later I understood that there was time. The merit of the election belongs to Tapia, not mine,” Menotti said in August 2022, without wanting to take any merit in the decision for Scaloni to keep his position.

In that first meeting, Flaco was very pleased that Scaloni told him that he wanted to recover the communion between the fans and the team, damaged by more than two decades of disappointments. “There I realized that we were on the right path,” Menotti expressed before the conquest in Arab lands, remembering the beginning of the post-Sampaoli adventure, after the enormous frustration that the 2018 World Cup in Russia meant for Argentine soccer.

Menotti took over as General Director of the National Teams on February 1, 2019, when the link between Scaloni and the senior team was nothing more than an interim position questioned by a large part of the Argentine football environment, since Sampaoli’s successor did not have any merits. nor popular consensus to direct the national team.

Menotti felt appreciation and respect for Scaloni, and for Aimar he also felt admiration from his playing days. (Photo by Rodrigo Valle/Getty Images)

Despite this, Menotti was always aligned with Tapia and asked him to support the project even in times of doubt. “These kids are workers and they don’t sell smoke,” Menotti used to say in private.

Did you like how the National Team played in that first year of Scaloni? Not too much, to the point that he even outlined some criticisms of the team’s level of play, but he saw positive things in the future and his eye did not fail him: today Scaloni is – along with Flaco himself and Carlos Bilardo – one of the three Argentine technicians world champions in seniors.

The bond between Menotti and Scaloni went from respectful to fraternal: Flaco invited the coach to eat and chat at his house more than once. He could not accompany the group to Qatar due to his health problems, but he was very present from a distance via telephone.

Before the final match of Qatar 2022 against France, Menotti gave a note to the Clarín newspaper in which he said: “I enjoyed the World Cup, but it made me very nervous. I trusted a lot because I saw how they worked, but above all because I saw what the relationship with the coaching staff was like first. And then because of how that relationship was transferred to the players and how the relationship between them occurred. The secret of this team is that it plays football and it makes me happy that it respects history.”

2024-05-14 05:19:00
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