It is not the best start or the most effective, but Hugo Ibarra’s debut as Boca manager will go down in history as one of the best. And if it continues like this, crowning the conquest of a new star, it will be unforgettable. El Negro has played 18 games on the Xeneize bench, won 12, drew 3 and lost 3 and has a 72% effectiveness rate.
Although the history of Boca is 117 years old, at the beginning there were no coaches. The first was Mario Fortunato, an injured former player at a very young age, who in 1930 was officially appointed to lead the team. I was 25 years old. To this day it is still the best start in the first 18 games: 15 wins, one draw and two defeats. There were still 16 games left for the tournament, which he won.
Those were other times, of course, and every win was worth two points to three now. This is why comparisons are sometimes hateful. And all the more the exaggeration of saying, as happened yesterday on social media from a Twitter account, that Ibarra was the most effective coach in history. Because he isn’t even.
Just Fortunato, with 255 official matches refereed in three phases at the club, with 167 wins, 41 draws and 47 defeats, reached 73.5% of the points at stake. Can you compare a manager who has played over 200 games to another who has played 18? In this case Horacio Bongiovanni, who was interim in the 1981 national team because Silvio Marzolini was in boarding school and was recovering from a heart attack, directed 9 games, lived 7 and drew 2 and had an efficiency of 88%. Can you compare a cycle of 9 games to another of 18? In any case, the data must be contextualized because otherwise they lose their meaning.
On the other hand, starts can be compared taking into account the first 18 games of a cycle, like that of Ibarra now, whose first meeting was in triumvirate with Mariano Herrón and Leandro Gracián. After the 2-1 defeat to San Lorenzo at Nuevo Gasómetro, the former right-back was confirmed on his own.
You don’t have to go back in time to find a good start like Ibarra’s. The second cycle of Miguel Angel Russo it started with everything. 13 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses, which is an effectiveness rate of 77.7%. And in this case too there is a clarification, or an asterisk, because in the first 18 matches Russo was not present in two and instead there was his assistant Leandro Somoza.
In the midst of the pandemic, Miguelito, who had recovered from a serious illness, avoided going to two Copa Libertadores matches, and both were victories: 2-0 against Libertad and 1-0 against DIM. If we subtract those two games and count the next two, draw 0-0 against Libertad and win against Caracas 2-0, the equation would be 12 wins, 4 draws, 2 defeats and 74.4% efficacy. Anyway, higher than Ibarra’s current one.
In addition to Fortunato and Russo, there have been nine other cases of coaches winning 12 or more of their first 18 games. Enrico Sobral, 14; Fortunato in its second cycle, 12; Eduardo González Pinto, 13; Ernesto Lazzatti in his second cycle, 13; Alfredo Di Stéfano in his first cycle, 12; Angelo Fernandez Roca, 12 years old; Alfredo Garasino, 12 (in addition, he also completed a high efficacy average: 73.2% in 114 games), Silvio Marzolini in 1981, 12; and José María Silvero, 12. All, like Ibarra, like a high percentage of effectiveness. According to the story of Boca.
And Juan Carlos Lorenzo? And Carlos Bianchi? Two of the most successful coaches in Boca history also have high numbers but below 70% both at the beginning of the cycles and in the final number. El Toto began his cycle, in the 1976 Metropolitano, with 8 wins, 6 draws and 4 defeats. And between its two cycles (234 games) it was 63% effective. While, the Viceroy, in 1998, made his debut with 11 wins, 4 draws and 3 defeatsand between his three periods at the club (352 games), he obtained 60.7% of the points up for grabs.
Lorenzo has won five titles, two local, two Libertadores and a European-South America Cup, while Bianchi has won nine, four local, three Libertadores and two Intercontinental. Ibarra started well but still has a long way to go.
Source: Clarin
