Messi lifts the Copa América in Brazil, in the very Maracaná stadium. He ends a streak of 28 years without a title. The drought of success begins to become a bad memory and history smells like a story by Eduardo Sacheri. The momentum of a renewed squad, hungry for victory and the goal of giving Lionel Messi a smile, prevails before everyone’s eyes. Criticism remains on the sidelines and enthusiasm for the National Team marks the agenda.
At the forefront of this reality is Lionel Scaloni. A technician who looked askance as soon as he was assigned to drive the albiceleste. An “inexperienced” coach, a survivor of the most repudiated World Cup cycle, who overcame a cataract of criticism for his scant resume as a coach. With a blank page, his name began to take center stage when he won the L’Alcudia tournament, at the helm of the Sub-20. Then came the internship in the major and what had an expiration date became a firm promise that It ended up becoming the workhorse of Claudio “Chiqui” Tapia’s management.
Pujato’s DT is responsible for a phenomenon that does not stop growing. the driver of a motorized project that nobody hesitates to call “La Scaloneta””. Obtaining the South American trophy in Brazil led to a new commitment with decisive characteristics: the final. An international event that Argentina played against Italy at Wembley Stadium in England. The champion of the Copa América against the champion of the European Championship. The final result was 3 to 0 in favor of the albiceleste and again the celebrations. In less than a year, Messi and Di María raised two trophies with the national team shirt.
The fans fell in love with the game of Argentina again and the passion ended up scripted in series and documentaries. On the one hand, “Scaloneta, the least imagined cycle”an independent production by Santi Ludeña that can be seen on YouTube and elsewhere, “Argentine National Team, the Serie. On my way to Qatar” a material produced by Grupo Octubre (can be seen on Amazon Prime), which shows the strength of a team that was complemented by experienced players and a litter of new talents.
The backbone of this series is the road to the Copa América and from there it is narrated through endless testimonies that form the choral story of a new era. Messi, Dibu Martínez, Ángel Di María, Rodrigo De Paul, Leandro Paredes, Nicolás Otamendi, Franco Armani, Germán Pezzella, Nicolás Tagliafico, Guido Rodríguez, Papu Gómez, Nico González, Tucu Correa, among others, appear before the cameras.
“It is evident that the atmosphere of the group is very good. If the one next to you is more than a partner, surely it hurts you more that things go wrong or they make a mistake, then you double your effort. If the vibe is good, negative things like a goal against, an expulsion or a missed goal, you take them differently. That helps”, said Scaloni in a long talk with the podcast “La Selecta”, which already has its first part available on Spotify.
the profile of this Selection seems to recover values of the amateur, of the game for the game. Connect with a creativity that is devouring systematization and extreme analysis. “We have to live. In sports, except for the three tennis monsters and a few more, most of the time, we are losing more than winning. In a World Cup, one wins and the other 31 lose. You have to enjoy it ”, Pablo Aimar explained in April of this year, in that same podcast.
The scenario of enthusiasm hastens the desire for the World Cup to be tomorrow. The identification with the team and the return of the successes, inadvertently becomes the passport of a new hope to renew the laurels of ’78 and ’86. Rodrigo De Paul, aware of the national momentum, warns in the Grupo Octubre series that you have to keep calm and live in the moments. And he tries to make it understood that the world cup is won by one team. “The bigger the illusion, the harder the hit can be,” he says.
“It doesn’t make much sense to continually think about the World Cup. There are so many games left… so many days that many things can happen. You have to keep looking at the players who are and those who can fight for a place. We already have the rivals marked, we look at them, but you cannot spend three months looking at the rivals continuously, ”explained Scaloni in this podcast hosted by journalists Martín Reich and Sebastián Varela del Río.
