Julio Lamas, the eminence who left basketball to accompany the Abel Balbo project at Central Córdoba

Three defeats in the first six dates of the Professional League and some differences with the management of Central Córdoba in Santiago del Estero motivated the resignation of Sergio Rondina just over two weeks ago and led to the priests of the railroad to find a new helmsman. The choice aroused surprise both for the name of the technical director, Abel Balbo, and for that of his assistant principal, Julio Lamas. The former coach of the Argentine basketball team will not be the first man to experience the leap to football from another discipline.

“I have no intention of entering football, it is not my plan. It was an offer from Abel, who asked me to join his coaching staff to help with the organization. I don’t know about football, I’m not up to the task, but it can happen that I join their team if it ends up being specified. It is an option, it is not a fact. I like his ideas, his person “Lamas had assured in an interview with sports journalism students on April 11, just a couple of days before announcing his retirement as a basketball coach.

One hundred and three days later, the man who led the national team to fourth place at the London 2012 Olympics will sit on the substitutes’ bench on a football field for the first time: it will be this Saturday at 20:30, when Central Córdoba, at a only point from the relegation places, he receives Racing in Madre de Ciudades for the 10th round of the championship. On Tuesday he was already in the crowd at the Ciudad de Vicente López stadium, where the Santiago team, temporarily led by Adrián Adrover, lost 2-0 to Platense.

“Julio Lamas needs no introduction. He will be for the management of the technical staff, he will be my collaborator in the management of the group. He has a huge trajectory worldwide and is a very high level professional “, Balbo explained Thursday in his first press conference with his coaching staff. Even the former Argentine national team striker cannot boast an extensive resume, as he spent only 21 days at the helm of the Treviso team in the Italian Serie B in 2009 and directed 10 matches against Arezzo in Serie D between June and October 2012.

The enormous trajectory of Lamas that Balbo was referring to is beyond question. He led the national team in two cycles (1997-1999 and 2011-2014) and was also in charge of the Japanese team from 2017 to 2021; he has performed for 20 years in the National League, in which he won titles with San Lorenzo, Libertad de Sunchales, Boca and Ben Hur de Rafaela; and he has worked in Spain in the best teams such as Real Madrid and Tau Cerámica. It will be necessary to see how much this will serve him for this new experience in ruthless Argentine football.

The Dutch case

Ariel Holan traveled a similar path, although her mother sport was field hockey. She began her career as a coach in the early 1980s at the German Gymnastics Society of Lomas de Zamora, worked in Banfield and also led the Uruguayan women’s team, with which she won the bronze medal at the 2003 Pan American Games. in Santo Domingo. in the semifinals they lost 7 to 0 with Las Leonas).

After that experience, almost two decades later, Holan began his experience in football, first as an assistant to Jorge Burruchaga during his tenure at Arsenal, Estudiantes and Independiente; and then with Matías Almeyda in River (he obtained promotion from B Nacional) and in Banfield. Nevertheless, whenever he was mentioned, he was still associated with the discipline of the stick and the ball.

After disassociating himself from Banfield, where he was also reserve manager, he was chosen by Defense and Justice to replace José in June 2015. Turu Flores, who had only led five games (four defeats and one draw) against a team that was playing its first season in the top category of Argentine football and was looking with awe at the middleweight rankings.

“The management here is the result of many years of preparation. The transition between hockey and football has been going on for 12 years. I ask people to trust us. We will give everything we have and we will try to put together a competitive and effective team ”.he said during the presentation at the Bosques site on June 12. Fears and skepticism flew over him and it seemed necessary to drive them out by ratifying his belonging to that universe that many denied him.

Distrust began to fade as it almost always does: hand in hand with the results. After making his 0-0 debut against Huracán at Parque de los Patricios, the Falcon beat Nueva Chicago 2-1 and thus cut a streak of 12 games without a win. That victory was followed by two more against Lanús and River. Thus began a cycle that culminated in the first defensive classification of an international tournament: the Copa Sudamericana 2017.

Holan’s career continued with success at Independiente, with which he won the Copa Sudamericana 2017 and Suruga Bank the following year, and with his first experience at the Universidad Católica de Chile, also with a consecration: the national competition 2020. Then he did not as successful in the Brazilian Santos, in the Mexican León or in his second landing in the Católica.

The Velasco case

Despite never sitting on a reserve bench, a volleyball legend, Julio Velasco, also had his passion for football, chosen in 2000 by the International Volleyball Federation as the best coach of the 20th century along with American Doug Beal and to the Japanese Yoshida Matsudaira.

Like most Argentine children, Velasco had kicked a ball during his childhood in his native La Plata. He had even reached the ninth division of Students before opting for volleyball. After his first experience as a coach of Ferro and after joining the technical staff led by the young South Korean Wan Sohn who led the Argentine team to third place at the 1982 World Cup, he moved to Italy, where he built his team. legend of him.

With Modena he won nine league titles (four of which in a row) and in 1989 he took the helm of the Italian national team, which he led until November 1996. He was two-time world champion in 1990 and 1994, he won five world championships. (1990, 1991, 1992, 1994 and 1995), three European Championships (1989, 1993 and 1995) and the silver medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. She then headed the women’s team between 1997 and 1998.

Although he was successful in his sport, his name was twice associated with football. Both times, from an idea of ​​Silvio Berlusconi to insert him as Milan coach. The first, in 1991, when the tycoon was starting his political career. He then suggested that the Argentine would be the ideal replacement for Arrigo Sacchi, who had led the team to a two-time European Cup and Intercontinental Cup, and was about to take over the Italian team.

“It was crazy. Berlusconi, in the middle of the electoral campaign, said he had thought of me for Milan. Absurd. For all things you have to know the details. You can be able to manage a group, but this does not allow you to direct any sport”Velasco said in 2007. On that occasion, Sacchi’s replacement ended up being Fabio Capello.

After his first term as prime minister of his country, Berlusconi returned to the pitch in April 1996, when he was looking for a successor for Capello, who was about to leave for Real Madrid. “And why not Velasco?”, He asked his collaborators in the management of the Red-black. The idea did not catch on and eventually the occupier of the bank was Oscar Washington Tabárez.

The meeting between the man from La Plata and the king of sport finally took place in May 1998, when he accepted the proposal of Sergio Cragnotti, president of Lazio, to work as sporting director of the club of the Italian capital. The experience was short-lived: although he had a four-year contract, he resigned after only one year of work.

“I wanted to leave due to some events that happened. I didn’t want weird things and I wouldn’t do things I wouldn’t do even when I didn’t have a handle. I couldn’t be in charge and then say what is usually said: ‘I didn’t know what was going on’ “ justified years later. Those strange things Velasco talked about were related to economic mismanagement. Some time after his resignation, Cragnotti was forced to sell the club and Cirio, the flagship food company of his emporium, went bankrupt.

Velasco also worked at Massimo Moratti’s Inter from May 2000 to the end of 2001. There he held the position of coach. “I had a more organizational role, I took care of everything related to the first team, with Marcello Lippi as the coach. But when they fired him, another coach (Marco Tardelli) arrived with his new team. The contract expired and I decided to go back to volleyball because what ignited the flame for me was training ”.He explained.

Once again in his discipline he led the Czech Republic team for two years, in 2003 he took over the leadership of the Piacenza team and subsequently did a second cycle in Modena and also led Montichiari and Brescia before returning to the direction of the national teams. : first from Spain (2008-2011) and then from Iran (2011-2014).

This is followed by the period with the Argentine national team between February 2014 and September 2018 (he won the gold medal at the Pan American Games in Toronto 2015), a third cycle in Modena and a final work in the Italian youth teams.

Beyond his formal roles in Lazio and Inter, Velasco has maintained contact with football and several coaches have met to exchange concepts with him, including Marcelo Bielsa and Jorge Sampaoli. Josep Guardiola did it too in 2002, when the Catalan played for Brescia and began to prepare for the job that he already imagined after retiring.

“(Guardiola) I wanted to deepen some issues such as group management, the problems arising from the relationship with the players and the concepts of the psychological aspect. I was very surprised that an active player would have cared so much about these issues. I was struck by his eagerness to know and understand, almost worthy of an intellectual “revealed in an interview with the daily Marca in 2011.