Lionel Scaloni, close to signing until 2026: the steps of the negotiation with Tapia and what is coming to the national team

Nothing signed yet. Therefore, nothing can be taken for granted. But all roads lead to you Lionel Scaloni and his coaching staff will renew their contract with the Argentine Football Federation in the coming days and extend their cycle of great successes up to the 2026 World Cup which will be played in Canada, the United States and Mexico. Yes, if there are no surprises, Scaloneta will be there for another three and a half years.

“We are used to giving good news… We always give good news. so wait for good news“She said Claudius Tapiathe president of the AFA, a week ago after the event for the joint candidacy of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay to organize the 2030 World Cup. And it seems that it will. Chiqui also knows that from Lionel Messi and Ángel Di María on down, all players want the cycle to continue.

When will the new bond be signed? The idea is that Scaloni will meet again with Tapia in Argentina in the first days of March. It will be after the coach will attend The Best Awards gala, to be presented on Feb. 27 in Zurich, Switzerland. The DT is one of the members of the world champion team that will go for the highest award, like Lionel Messi, as best player, and Emiliano I drew Martínez, as best goalkeeper. Pujato’s obviously competes in the category of best coach with Pep Guardiola (Manchester City) and Carlo Ancelotti (Real Madrid).

Only then, after that stop at FIFA, will Scaloni return to Argentina, where he spent a few days with his parents in Santa Fe during the New Year’s celebrations before returning to Mallorca, where he lives with his wife and children and has his life and his armed routine.

There, already on the Spanish island, DT clarified its intention to continue at the helm of La Scaloneta. “These days I’m on my way to Buenos Aires. I hope to sit down with the president (for Tapia), meet him and then see if we reach the agreement we want. That’s the idea. I don’t know what day I will travel because I’m fine with family here and I enjoy these days”he expressed in an interview with Mallorca’s El Partidazo de Cope on January 24th.

That trip was eventually scheduled for March. He is known, as he said clarion days ago, what The Selection is the ideal job for Scaloni and it fits very well in the position. In that same report, where he was seen very calm, he released: “I’m fine where I am. I’ll continue to train. Being in the national team allows me to stay at home, with my family, to watch my children grow up. The time will come to lead a club”.

Beyond the rumors of some differences with Tapia that would have arisen in one of the last tours before the World Cup in Qatar -in one of them, in the United States, the president of the AFA hastened to announce a renewal that never materialised-, the relationship with the strong man of Argentine football continues to be one of mutual respect. “I have an excellent relationship with him and I thank him for the opportunity he gave me to be in charge of the national team. We will announce what it should be”stressed that night in COPE.

What differences emerged? At the beginning there were some economic distances that had to do not only with the new contract – the previous one was that of a confirmed temporary worker and the current one is that of the world champion DT -, but also with the payment methods of the awards they have earned by taking the national team to the top of the football planet. This is almost all agree. Only the tax item remains to be seen, but in the Ezeiza estate they believe that the matter will eventually be resolved over the course of the days.

The training of the coaching staff was also discussed. It is that after the story of the Thousand and One Nights in the Middle East, Scaloni was left without Rodrigo Barrios, a substitute physical trainer who went to Johor in Malaysia; and Damián Albil, second goalkeeping coach who moved to Independiente de Avellaneda. The idea of ​​the DT would be to add new members to fill the vacancies, while in AFA they believe that it can be agreed with other specialists who already work with other teams, since the calendars rarely overlap.

The other controversial point, while it would not be a determining factor for the renewal, depends on knowing who will manage the Sub 20 Selection. A while ago it was leaked that Scaloni wanted the position to remain in the hands of Lucas Bernardi. However, Tapia chose Javier Mascherano.

Now, after the premature elimination of the South American youth team from the Colombian category -with elimination in the group stage and without qualification for the World Cup in Indonesia or the Pan-American Games in Santiago de Chile-, Jefecito has presented his indeclinable resignation. But the president does not want to hear anything about it and ratified it in office. It will be necessary to see how that mini soap opera will end up and to know if Chiqui will yield to Scaloni’s recommendation in the event that the former national team midfielder remains in his position of removal from the AFA structures. However, the Sub 20 theme does not fall within the central node of a renewal, that of the creator of the Scaleneta, which is already in full swing.

Selection calendar

Once the renewal of Scaloni’s contract has been made official, the AFA will announce the agenda that awaits the national team in 2023. The first will be the two friendlies that will be played in the Fifa data window at the end of March. In principle, Argentina will play its first match after Qatar 2022 on March 23 or 25 against Panama in a Monumental that will not be enough and three or four days later in Córdoba or Santiago del Estero against Suriname. Similarly, the second opponent can still change.

Then another window will come Fifa in June and the AFA’s idea is to play two friendlies in Asia. One probability is that the Selection will travel to bangladesh, the country that brings together millions of fans in blue and white, to play a friendly match with the local team. The other opponent has not yet been defined, even if a new passage for Argentina through Abu Dhabi is not excluded.

In the meantime, the South American qualifiers in the direction of Canada-United States-Mexico will begin next September. Only then will the first official commitments be made with an eye to the 2024 Copa América in the United States as the first major goal.