Scaloni, 100 days as world champion: why he didn’t watch the final against France and the nickname of his ‘son’ De Paul

The technical director of the Argentine national team Lionel Scaloni recounted the intimacies of the team on its way towards consecration in view of Qatar 2022 and revealed the nickname that the group has chosen to “signal” the weak point it has with the former Racing player . “They call him Sca-Paolo”revealed in an interview broadcast by the AFA channel on the Twitch platform.

“Sca-Paul they tell him. I love it. He keeps the group going. It’s important on campus. Every time he has been there he has given us so much, he must continue to demonstrate as he does with us and in his club. I’ve taken him out a bunch of times too and he’s been mad because it’s annoying but that’s the way it is. I see Rodrigo as I was in the group, always positive. Those people on campus are important”meditated.

Interviewed by the journalist Morena Beltran For the official AFA channel, Scaloni recalled the passage of the World Cup in which De Paul was injured and his participation against the Netherlands was at risk. “In the previous one in Holland (sic), De Paul was touched in training two days after the match. I didn’t care if it was known, yes ”, remarked the coach.

“But (the anger) wasn’t with the press, the press is there to report and report what comes. He was in training and within an hour and a half the information was circulating. No coach likes it and I don’t like it We were playing a joke on (rival coach, Louis) Van Gal. I didn’t like it. These are things we need to correct. Maybe it’s not bad, it’s a message that comes out and secondly that’s it,” he said. said, implying that the leak was something like “friendly fire”.

“Although we had a replacement for Rodrigo, we never wanted to give him an advantage, it wasn’t necessary. He was very close to the game, the desire was great and I told him that I trusted what he was about to say, but not to make me use a substitution (at the start of the game). We knew what he could give us even with that problem and who could come in, we also knew what he could give us. Or you could have taken a risk and we did. The minutes that he has played, he has done very well, ”he analyzed.

Consequently, the interviewer wanted to know if the midfielder’s performance was miraculous. “Miracle, no. Injured, you can’t play. But of the elite players, 90 percent, nobody is one hundred percent. Always at 80… It’s very difficult to be at 100: you have to find a 17-year-old boy.” has explained.