The World Cup reaches its semifinals and the expectation in Argentina grows, if there is still room for that. In Doha, FIFA has found the solution: it has changed the usual room for holding press conferences for a huge auditorium and thus accommodate the journalists who follow the albiceleste, who are a multitude, even more so when they mix with the special envoys from all over the world, attracted by the team led by Leo Messi.
Behind Messi and on a different scale, the figure of another Lionel is emerging, in this case Scaloni, the coach. Both are doing very well together in this World Cup but the link comes from before, together they won the 2021 Copa América, and together in some way they have been building a new team, very renewed as shown by a revealing fact: the albiceleste has in their ranks with 19 players who have never played in the World Cup. Scaloni himself is the youngest coach of those who arrived in Qatar, at 44 years old.
Apart from the name (Messi is called that because his parents liked Lionel Richie's songs), the player and coach are linked by their origins. Both are from the province of Santa Fe, the first was born in Rosario and the second in Pujato, the two towns only being 40 kilometers apart. If Messi played five years in the lower categories of Newell's Old Boys, Scaloni did it in the first team in a dozen games before making the leap to Estudiantes and finally to the Spanish League. At Deportivo he left a lot of mark.
But two people can have the same origin and not connect. Scaloni and Messi coincided in the 2006 World Cup in Germany as footballers under the orders of José Pekerman. They played little and Argentina was eliminated in the quarterfinals against the host team. It was as a result of their coexistence as coach and captain when the ties were strengthened. Scaloni, at first interim in charge (he had only been second to Sampaoli at Sevilla and U-20 coach), used his assistant Pablo Aimar, Messi's childhood idol, to recruit the ten again for the cause , frustrated as he was by the continuous mental blows suffered with the albiceleste. The approach worked and now Messi appreciates several virtues of the coach. “He likes how football lives, how he talks with the players, his closeness and his honesty. Also how he prepares the matches and how he intervenes when the game is played, ”says a source close to Messi.
Above tactical considerations, in Argentina Scaloni stands out for the naturalness that he transmits in the most critical moments, which have been all since the team debuted with a defeat against Saudi Arabia. Every game has been toss up from there. Under a climate of maximum tension, Scaloni has managed to reduce the stress of a young group that represents a country that lives football with a sometimes paralyzing passion.
Scaloni spoke yesterday about Messi and his leadership: “That is not a merit of the coach, it is his merit. It's nice to see him with that desire to continue playing ball, how envious he is ”. And he once again fled from tremendous analysis, claiming a less dramatic vision of football: “The illusion of winning this World Cup is that of all Argentines. This team plays for them. We will do our best but the sport is about winning or losing”. About that, Scaloni became serious to defend his team from criticism that accuses him of being a rowdy after the tension experienced against the Netherlands: “I don't buy that that we don't know how to win or lose. We lost to Arabia and we quietly went to the hotel. We won the Copa América and there was the image of Messi and Neymar sitting on the stairs of the changing rooms, talking.
Scaloni will have Di María and De Paul today, recovered. Tagliafico will cover the loss of Acuña, sanctioned.
