Cesar Menotti, Lionel Scaloni and Claudio Tapia, in an image of 2019, when he began to shape the team that would later become champion. Photo: Juan MABROMATA / AFP.
The coordinator of the selection Cesare Luis Menotticonfessed today that the first time he met Lionel Scalloni to offer him the job of coach he was “afraid” because he did not know him personally.
The truth is that when Claudio Tapia told me about Lionel Scaloni, I was afraid at the meeting, because I didn’t know him. I was scared when I first met and that’s why I came to that meeting worried. As I say this, I also assure you that I did not like it when they offered him a contract of only five months, although I realized afterwards that there was time. The merit of the election belongs to Tapia, not mine, “said Menotti.
Since his arrival Scaloni has managed to promote Messi to the national team. Photo: JUAN MABROMATA / AFP.
“Flaco”, coach of the world champion team in 1978 and also at the 1982 World Cup in Spain when Diego Maradona made his debut, continued: “In the first meeting I had with Tapia, where we didn’t have a coach yetthere were some words that made me think we were on the right track. “
“He told me ‘We need to recover people with the national team’, that sentence led me to eat with the current national team coaching staff and I felt the same thing. At that moment I realized that we were on the right path. it was that: to recover people and that we are quite united “, recalled Menotti in an interview on the radio of Villa Trinidad.
The appointment of Scaloni, one of Chiqui Tapia’s successes at the helm of the Alfa. Photo: Twitter.
Also, ahead of the World Cup in Qatar, in which the Argentina will share Zone C with Poland, Mexico and Saudi Arabiahe announced that at 82 he would make the “effort” to travel to the Arab country.
And in turn he asked not to play the expected match with Brazil, as established by FIFA, because he is an “uncomfortable” rival for this moment in which the coaching staff will try to “try in a short time”.
“With Brazil, if you play, you will compete and not try. The truth is that you have to save energy to compete in the World Cup,” he said.
Scaloni goes to Qatar at the helm of a national team that is among the candidates to win the Cup. Photo: EFE / Villar López.
“Messi, even if he wants to, never plays badly. Even if he wants to play badly, he can’t. It’s the one thing Messi can’t do: play badly. Let’s imagine that he enters the field predisposed to play very badly, but when he enters the field and the ball is at his feet he cannot give it to the opponents “, he praised.
“I always expect the best from him. The commitment to his game is guaranteed in this team. They will not leave their football and Messi is very important: he is more mature, he does not feel the weight of comments. nobody sells smoke“, he appreciated.
On the other hand, the former coach assured that there is no “point in common” between Tapia and Julio Humberto Grondona, who passed away in 2014 after 35 years at the helm of the AFA, although he later clarified: “The Grondona that I have met, who ran the Independiente, had the humility of the neighborhood and the other Grondona was devoured by successes. After 90 ‘he felt himself master of the world. Tapia has everything: he has a neighborhood, he has a street, he has the ability to understand , often hidden, but that doesn’t mean it has no character.
Source: Telam
Source: Clarin
