Lionel Scaloni's Impact on Argentina Football

This is the big triumph of these extraordinary eight years under the command of Lionel Scaloni.

How has he got to that level whereby himself and Ronaldo are both nearly on an even kilter

at a stage, but how messy just has that about him, that just intrigue and how he garners that

respect, respect being the word around him. Yeah and this is the big triumph of these

extraordinary eight years under the command of Lionel Scaloni, who let's remember had never

coached a senior side before and I remember when he was appointed, first he was a caretaker and

the line was, I remember Maradona saying well he's a nice lad this Scaloni but you know you

wouldn't trust him to direct traffic and at that point it was hard to disagree you know

and here we are eight years later with Argentina, this has probably been the most successful

period in the history of Argentina's national side and it's bizarre that it started very badly

because Scaloni, he'd been on the coaching staff in Russia 2018 as an observer of

Argentina's future opponents and he'd become obsessed with France

and so his idea when he came in as Argentina coach he said this is modern football, the French they

win the ball within four seconds they're in a position to shoot, that's the style that I want,

that's the style that we need, that's the style that Argentina are going to be playing

and you're thinking then well that's not a very good idea for a certain Lionel Messi is it,

that's not the way that he's going to want to play and it lasted kind of one competitive game,

Copa America of 2019 when they got beat badly by Colombia and you could see it just wasn't

what wasn't going to work and during the course of that competition the two of them, Scaloni and

Messi started to work together and Messi at the time he was falling out with Barcelona

and I think it's the moment when Argentina becomes a priority in his career and he thinks about it,

what do I need to do, what do I have to change in order to enjoy the same success that I've

before that Messi, very introverted, very self-contained, that his the quietness of his

nature inhibited the other players because imagine you're called up for Argentina,

you're training with Messi, all you ever want is for him to notice you and praise you

and if he's just in his own little world it ain't going to happen and one of the first things that

Scaloni did is not to call up Sergio Agüero who was in his pomp at the time and the idea I think

was, well Agüero's his mate, he only ever speaks to Agüero, we're going to take Agüero away,

we're going to force him to interact with the rest of the group and I think Messi had come

to a similar conclusion that he had to transform himself into the vocal leader by this time

because remember there's a little dispute going on with Tevez for a while

about who's going to be top dog, that's over so it is clear that this is Messi's team

and he's now kind of surrounded with his fan club, with people who idolise him

and Scaloni's big triumph was to get Messi integrated in the group in a way that he'd

never been before and that 2019 Copa where Argentina losing the semi-finals, the journos

who were following Argentina were saying Messi's totally different, he's become this

vocal leader, you can't shut him up, he even picked up a ban for giving an interview and saying

the whole tournament's corrupt, you know he's not used to talking so he just talked himself

into trouble. I remember a couple of months afterwards Di Maria, now Di Maria has been

playing with Messi for years, Di Maria saying to the Argentine media I like this Messi,

kind of like wasn't too keen on him before, I like him now, so I think Scaloni, a lot of the

tactical things that he's done have been great and he's got a team that can play in different ways

but probably his biggest triumph has been the human one, to bring Messi into the centre of the group

in a way that Argentina hadn't managed to do before.