Lionel Scaloni’s quiet revolution carries Argentina towards England showdown

DALLAS – Lionel Scaloni barely registered among the coaching royalty gathered in Bilbao back in February 2020.

Brazil’s Tite drew the crowds to the International Football Summit. Fabio Capello, Unai Emery and Ernesto Valverde commanded attention. Scaloni, only months into one of world football’s most unforgiving jobs, looked like an afterthought.

Then lunch was served. Initially quiet at the table, the former Argentina fullback gradually relaxed into easy conversation, thawing the room with warmth and easy humour and drawing laughs from even the famously stern Capello.

Six years later, the understated coach from the small town of Pujato takes Argentina into a World Cup semi-final against England, one win from a second successive final and a chance to lead Argentina to become the first team since 1962 to win back-to-back World Cup titles.

At the Bilbao summit, Scaloni was still best known as a former hard-working player who had built his career in Spain playing for Deportivo La Coruna and Racing Santander, with less memorable spells in England and Italy.

He then drifted into Argentina’s national set-up, after serving as Jorge Sampaoli’s assistant at the chaotic 2018 World Cup.

Argentina’s last-16 exit in Russia had pushed Lionel Messi away from the national team, exhausted by the old accusation that he could not reproduce his Barcelona brilliance in blue and white.

Scaloni was handed Argentina in no small part due to the fact that Mauricio Pochettino, Diego Simeone and others had declined the poisoned chalice.

Few then imagined Scaloni would go on to become one of the most successful figures in the country’s football history.

Aided throughout by former players Pablo Aimar and Walter Samuel, Scaloni first coaxed Messi back. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic, the postponement of the Copa America and, eventually, the day in Rio de Janeiro that changed everything.

At the Maracana in 2021, thanks to Angel di Maria's 21st-minute goal, Argentina beat Brazil in the Copa America final, ending their 28-year trophy drought and giving Messi his first major senior title with his country.

It was the spark for the golden era that conquered France in the 2022 World Cup final in Qatar.

Yet Scaloni has never turned Messi or Argentina into a way of seeking vindication for his work. He conquered the world without appearing to believe he owned it.

That restraint has become part of his power. In a football culture often caricatured as extravagant or arrogant, Scaloni has built a side around emotional force without making himself the show.

“I’m not a coach because I like the 4-3-3,” he said ahead of the game with Switzerland. “I like to be in a group with colleagues, drinking mate, eating asado (barbecue), playing cards...

“If you only think of the game, you end up burned out.”

He also represents an Argentinian coaching school that has spread across South America and beyond. Eight of the 10 Conmebol teams in the recent World Cup qualifiers were managed by Argentinians, while six Argentinian coaches worked at this World Cup.

Brazil, by contrast, suffered their second-worst World Cup finish, ending 11th after a last-16 loss to Norway. For the first time, no Brazilian coach was present at a World Cup, with Brazil themselves led by Italy’s Carlo Ancelotti.

Before Euro 2024, former Barcelona and Brazil fullback Sylvinho, then Albania coach, told Reuters that Argentinian players often think earlier and more seriously about their long-term development.

He pointed to Scaloni, once his rival in Galicia, recalling how the Argentinian regularly travelled to Madrid with Sylvinho’s Celta Vigo teammate Eduardo Coudet, now River Plate coach, to attend Spanish FA coaching courses while still playing.

That discipline helps explain the boy from a small agricultural town and his relationship with work, fame and responsibility even after becoming a World Cup winner.

His greatest achievement, however, seems to be solving how to manage Messi without being consumed by Messi's figure and all the pressure that surrounds him.

Under Scaloni, Argentina became more than a side built around Messi. Instead, players seem to feel inspired and driven by their icon to become pillars of the same mission, brilliantly described by midfielder Leandro Paredes: “We work so that Messi’s last game never arrives.”

Scaloni, typically, reached for perspective after the July 11 victory over Switzerland.

“This is nothing more than a football match,” he said.

Match by match, the former defender once seated among more celebrated coaches has grown larger than them all. REUTERS