Scaloni, a boy who wants to be normal in a world that is not normal

Lionel Scaloni have a problem: he wants to be a normal boy in an increasingly less normal world. And the problem is, he’s the coach of a soccer team that he has Lionel Messiwhich represents a very particular country and which arouses expectations that transcend the sporting sphere.

After the victory against Mexico, essential for the national team to continue living in the World Cup, the coach praised Messi and his players, showed his pride and happiness.

Also, his low profile: when asked about the changes he said “I made another decision, neither the most important nor the least important, sometimes it’s good and other times it’s bad, today it went well”. He analyzed the game as best he could and couldn’t suppress a reflection that seems countercultural: it goes against the madness of football. Of the madness that is confused with passion, of the drama that finally comes to fruition He focused on the pressure all of this puts on the players.

Maybe he didn’t mean to, but they consulted him about a picture of Pablo Aimar on the verge of tears and Scaloni rehearsed an impromptu but meaningful monologue. Deep. That of a boy who wants to be normal.

This said: “It’s more a reflection that needs to be done, what you really experience being here, you should have a little more common sense and think it’s just a football match. Now I get a message from my brother who had gone onto the pitch crying, that I hadn’t heard the match and it can’t be. The feeling is that you are playing something more than a football match, the truth is that I don’t agree with it, and it is the same thing that the players feel when they go out on the pitch, it seems to me that we have to correct it, we will try to follow the path that they feel is a football match, otherwise every time they have to play a match to get through a knockout stage, a World Cup, or play ball the Argentina national team is always going to be like this.”

And he concluded: “That’s why that feeling we’ve all had of relief and it’s hard to make people understand that finally the sun will rise tomorrow, win or lose and the important thing is how you did things, if you tried your best and that’s what what are we doing “.

So, after celebrating with Messi, crying, hugging, feeling and sharing all this, the national coach invites us to reflect, to look in the mirror and see what image it gives us. Scaloni says it, convinced but with the sadness of fighting against something that has no solution.