Ramón Díaz and a revenge that has waited 26 years: from the “deluxe” River to the surprising Al Hilal, who seeks to dethrone Real Madrid

Twenty-six years after his first failed attempt, Ramon Angel Diaz he’s going on the hunt for an Intercontinental trophy on Saturday. In 1996, with that River by Enzo Francescoli, Ariel Ortega, Marcelo Gallardo and Marcelo Salas, they fell 1-0 against Juventus in Tokyo in the definition of the Inter-South American Cup. This time they will face the final of the Club World Cup in Rabat against Real Madrid. He will do so under the command of Al-Hilal, a club with which he has already won five titles and one of the four he has led in the Arab world, that universe in which the man from La Rioja set foot six years ago and to which he wants to say goodbye with another crown

“What remains for me is that I want to win again with this club, I want to win another title, we will certainly decide what to do next”, Ramón answered the question about his pending dream during an interview posted on the FIFA website on the eve of the duel his team beat Morocco’s Wydad on penalties for the quarterfinals of the Club World Cup. That victory was followed up by a surprise triumph against Flamengo which allowed Al-Hilal to become the first Saudi and sixth non-European or South American club to reach a final of this tournament.

At 63, Díaz is enjoying this dream moment with the club where he began his journey in this part of the planet. On 23 October 2016 he began his first period at Al-Hilal after his three cycles at River (he won nine titles), after winning the 2007 Clausura with San Lorenzo, after a short-lived experience at Independiente, after directing América de Mexico and English Oxford United, and that he failed to pass the group stage of the 2016 Copa América Centenario in charge of the Paraguayan national team.

The first months of I strip in Arab land they have been full of successes: in January 2017 they won the Custody of the Two Holy Mosques Champions Cup, beating Al-Ahli in the final, and in April they secured the Saudi championship. As if that weren’t enough, they had an outstanding appearance in the Asian Champions League that year, although they lost the final to Japanese side Urawa Red Diamonds after drawing 1-1 in Riyadh and losing 1-0 in Saitama with a goal from Il Brazilian Rafael Silva, two minutes from the end of the match.

There was nothing to suggest the romance could die out so soon. But the Argentine coach was sacked on 20 February 2018, a few minutes after the 1-0 defeat against the Iranian Esteghlal for the second round of group D of the Champions League. At the time, the team led the local league by four points clear and four dates from the outcome of the race. His place was taken by a compatriot, Juan Ignacio Brown, who carried out the task and brought Al-Hilal to a consecration for which Ramón had done almost all the work.

What motivated the dismissal? As revealed by the Saudi sports newspaper Arriyadiyah, the management had asked to include two players who had not been in the starting line-up and also to exclude his son Emiliano from the technical staff. The double refusal of the man from La Rioja would trigger the decision. “I am leaving this great club very grateful. (I thank) the administration, its fans who have always accompanied them, but above all the players who, despite the requests of the moment, have always responded in the best way, putting the club where it deserves to be”. .

Three months after that separation, Ramón returned to Saudi Arabia, but not to Riyadh, but to Jeddah, to direct Al Ittihad, the bitter rival of Al-Hilal. The experience did not start well, as before the start of the season the coach assured in an interview with TyC Sports that he was ready to manage the Argentine team, which needed a driver after the departure of George Sampaoli after the World Cup in Russia. Words didn’t take long to cross the planet, and thousands of Al-Ittihad supporters called for his sacking.

The management supported him, but the credit was short-lived: he was sent off on 15 September after leading the team in just four games, in which they had one draw and three defeats (one of them against his former club, Al-Hilal , for the Saudi Super Cup). “The Ittihad board of directors has decided to remove Argentine coach Ramón Díaz from his post after his poor performances since the beginning of the season,” he justified, without too many laps.

His next experience was beyond the Red Sea, in Egypt: on 5 February 2019 he took the helm of the Pyramids FCclub which was founded in 2008 as Al Assiouty Sport in Beni Seuf and which in 2018 was acquired by Saudi millionaire Turki Al-Sheikh (royal adviser and president of the General Sports Authority of his country), changed its name and moved in Cairo.

Called up by Al-Sheikh, who knew him from his work at Al-Hilal, Díaz had to replace an emblem of Egyptian football, Hossam Hassan (the national team’s all-time top scorer), who was fired two weeks before his arrival. His stay was short, but fruitful: he spent less than four months, in which his team won eight games, drew three and lost only one. As a result, they finished third in the Egyptian Premier League and qualified for the African Confederation Cup.

At that moment, his destination seemed to be Cerro Porteño. Seven months later he ended up in Paraguay, but to direct Freedom. A prosperous start to the season has been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. When the ball rolled again, things didn’t go so smoothly and the I strip He left on September 24, 2020 with the team third in the local league and complicated in its Copa Libertadores group, which it shared with Boca, Independiente Medellín and Caracas.

This was followed by a misstep by Brazil. On November 10 of the same year it was presented in Botafogo, but immediately traveled to Asunción to undergo thyroid surgery. The recovery was supposed to take 10 days, but was extended. After 17 days in which the fire pit played and lost three games with Emiliano Diaz in the bank, the management decided to fire Ramón. “Due to the health conditions of the coach, who is now expected to resign from 7 December, the club believes it can’t wait any longer,” he justified.

After the period of convalescence, the man from La Rioja is back in the ring and still with the GPS pointed towards the Middle East: on February 4, 2021 he took over the Al-Nasr of the United Arab Emirates. He arrived in Dubai five days before the team played the first leg of their League Cup semi-final. In their debut they lost 2-1 at home to Ittihad Kalba but in the rematch they won by the same result and later won on penalties. On 9 April, they lost the final of that tournament to Shabab Al-Ahli, again on 11m shots, after a 0–0 draw.

On May 16, the whole I strip he was again at the door of a consecration: he lost the President’s Cup final, again against Shabab Al-Ahli. They fell 2-1 at Al-Ain’s Hazza bin Zayed Stadium with a goal converted by Santa Fe’s Federico Cartabia in the third minute of stoppage time of the second half. That campaign ended with a fifth-place finish in the Emirates league, 11 points behind champions Al-Jazeera and outside the Asian Champions League qualifying places.

In the 2021/22 season, Al-Nasr had a promising start in the league, with five wins, three draws and only one defeat. But then he stumbled five times and fell to ninth, 15 points behind leaders Al-Ain. So Ramón, with a move that only took him a few hours, cut ties on February 15, he got on a plane, landed in Riyadh and started his second cycle in Al-Hilal. The grudges, after the dismissal in 2018, seemed to be put aside.

The bar was high, given that the team had won the last two editions of the local league and had reached, just three months earlier and under the guidance of Portuguese Leonardo Jardim, their fourth crown in the Asian Champions League. Díaz did not disappoint: he won the league title three times in the domestic tournament, won the Lusail Super Cup and won his group in the Champions League (on February 20 he will face Emirates Shabab Al-Ahli in the round of 16). The good performances brought 14 Al-Hilal players to the squad of the Saudi national team that beat Argentina in the first match of the World Cup in Qatar.

With those rolls in his briefcase and with high expectations, Ramón and his family arrived in Morocco. “This is the largest club in Asia. We are in a super competitive team, which allows you to choose the players you want and also gives you the chance to win”, stated the DT before the debut. Two victories put him one step away from that title which is being drawn as his pending dream. To do so, they must overcome Real Madrid, who have emerged victorious in eight matches in their last four Club World Cup appearances. And if it succeeds? “I don’t know, we’ll see the future later”warning.