Reunited with Messi

When I arrived in Atlanta in 2016, it was like a refuge for me.

After spells at Barcelona and with the Argentina national team, I wanted to be out of sight of the world. Still working and competing, just away from the spotlight.

I had a lot of media exposure at Barça and in Argentina. I grew tired of stories that, on many occasions, didn’t even require the journalist to write a headline. They came out, and everyone followed them.

Sometimes, if it’s convenient, there are stories you are happy to run out of self-interest. One of those was that, in my last years as a player, I would watch NBA games from the perspective of a future football coach. That I would write down in my notebook everything related to tactics, coaches, players’ movements and more.

None of that was right! I watched the NBA because I always liked basketball. In my notebook, there were only numbers. I liked to know how many minutes each player played, who scored the most, who had the most rebounds. I love statistics, and keeping track of that kind of data. There was nothing that related to the vision of a future coach.

It was a story I was happy to let go, though, because it did no harm. And yes, let’s say maybe it made me look a little more interesting as a coach.

There is also the story of my influences as a coach, and what people call the ‘Bielsista’ stamp. I prefer to look at it another way. At Newell’s Old Boys through the 1980s and 1990s, my teammates and I had a number of great coaches: Juan Carlos Montes, Jorge Solari and José Yudica, for example. With Yudica, we won the Argentine league title. For me, that was the best team in the history of Newell’s.

"in paraguay, i found a comfort i wouldn't have had in argentina at that time"

So I am more than a ‘Bielsista’. I consider myself to be the product of that group of coaches, influenced as much by Yudica, Solari and Montes.

Marcelo Bielsa followed them, and that’s when Newell’s developed more of a combination of older players and younger players who came from the grassroots. That’s why I think there are a lot of younger coaches who are more influenced by Marcelo – guys like Mauricio Pochettino, Eduardo Berizzo and Fernando Gamboa, among others. They all knew Marcelo from the youth teams; they have much more right to say they are influenced by Marcelo’s idea than I do.

I did like Marcelo’s ability to change certain habits when it came to the veteran players, as in my case. That is not easy to achieve as a coach, but he made it clear to me in our first meeting. If I wanted to play, I had to give a lot more of myself. And I did.

I also have a connection with Marcelo from my time as a coach. Why? I started as an assistant coach to Carlos Picerni, who in turn had been Marcelo’s assistant at Newell’s. I was at the end of a spell at Barcelona in Ecuador, and in 1996 Carlos called me to join him at Platense, back in Argentina. That’s where the connection with Marcelo came from.

When Carlos called me, I didn’t hesitate. I stopped playing, and that’s how I went over to the other side.

After a time, I told Carlos that I had aspirations to work as a head coach. I went to watch the World Cup in France in 1998. While I was there, Almirante Brown approached me about the possibility of becoming their head coach. They were in the second division, but it was a very well organised club with a good structure. We came to an agreement quite quickly, and got on with it. That’s how we started our journey in the Argentine second division, which continued afterwards back at Platense and with Instituto de Córdoba.

"that moment reflected my year in barcelona – without doubt the toughest of my career"

My next stop was Paraguay. There, I found a comfort I probably wouldn’t have had in Argentina at that time. After spells at Libertad and Cerro Porteño, and a brief time back in Argentina with Colón, I took charge of the national team in 2007.

That experience at clubs of the importance of Libertad and Cerro gave me the opportunity to build a solid national team. I had a committed group of players who quickly understood where we were going. To accomplish that is the ideal of every coach, but it is a difficult thing to achieve with a national team, where you have very little time to work with the players.

We achieved great things, but we were inches away from making history. At the 2010 World Cup, Iker Casillas saved a penalty from Óscar Cardozo (below) at 0-0 in the quarter final against Spain. Spain won the game 1-0. A year later, we lost the final of the 2011 Copa América to Uruguay.

But hey, this has been a theme throughout my coaching career. I’ve achieved a lot, but I’ve been inches away from achieving a lot more.

This was also the case with Newell’s in 2013, when we reached the semi finals of the Copa Libertadores – and lost on penalties against the eventual winners, Atlético Mineiro. And even more so at Barcelona, when a perfectly legal goal was disallowed in the last league game of the 2013/14 season at home to Atlético Madrid. There was no VAR at the time, and Atlético won the title with a 1-1 draw.

Not many coaches lose a title like that, do they? But I think that moment reflected the whole year I lived in Barcelona. It was without doubt the toughest of my career.

"in finals, what determines the story that gets told is whether you won or lost"

That season, I took over a team with the same players who had changed the course of world football with their play. However, they were not what they used to be. I was trying to recover a level that had been lost, and not just because the players were getting older, while managing everything else around the team.

However, I am reassured that the goal that was disallowed on the last day of La Liga was legal, and that would have won us the championship. Mateu Lahoz, the referee for that game, told me so a year later.

Meeting him again was a coincidence. I was on a tour of Europe, watching matches for the Argentina national team. I had been manager for a year, and I went to Wolfsburg to Gonzalo Higuaín play for Napoli. That’s where I met Mateu, and he told me, so I have that peace of mind.

On the other hand, I don’t think that winning the league would have prevented me from leaving Barcelona that summer. A coach senses when this kind of thing is going to happen from the way the whole year goes.

In the end, this is football and these things happen. I didn’t give it any more thought. By the time Mateu confessed this to me, I was already fully focused on Argentina – and managing a cycle of players that mixed a lot from the previous reign of the well-respected Alejandro Sabella with the arrival of new names.

If you look at Argentina’s record from 2014 to 2016, you will see that they played 19 games in the two most important competitions: seven in the World Cup, and 12 across two Copa Américas. They didn’t lose a single game in 90 minutes, but they didn’t win any of those tournaments.

"in between jobs, i like to go home – to analyse, but also to spend time with my family"

When you get to finals, what determines how the story is told is whether you won or lost.

Under Sabella, Argentina lost the World Cup final to Germany in extra time. In two Copa Américas with me, we lost two finals to Chile, both on penalties. That run has now changed, because the last three important competitions – the 2021 Copa América, the 2022 Finalissima and the 2022 World Cup (below) – Argentina won.

During my time with Argentina, the footballing side worked well, but the national team was going through a lot of institutional upheaval. Political disorder reigned in Argentinian football, and I had to manage that part as well. Football is not an island that manages on its own.

By July 2016, I came to the conclusion that there was no reason to stay and carry on fighting. I saw no light at the end of the tunnel, so I resigned. I have always been very clear in the decisions I make.

It was the same with the Mexico national team. Even in good times, with the possibility of discussing my renewal after the World Cup (below), I was always honest with the management. “Everything is subject to what happens at the World Cup,” I told them. And then what happened, happened. It wasn’t enough.

For a team that had reached the round of 16 at the past seven World Cups, it’s a failure to go out in the group stage. With that result, you obviously lose the right to continue. I think I’m sufficiently self-critical to know when something is over.

"inter miami is another refuge for me, but i have the same ambition – and now i have messi again"

In the breaks – between leaving one team and waiting to get to another – I have always liked to go home. There, I can analyse how everything has gone, but it has also been about spending time with my children – although this last time, after leaving Mexico, it is now much more with my grandchildren. What doesn’t change, fortunately for me, is that my wife is always with me.

During these breaks, offers often come in. In the last break I had at home, after the 2022 World Cup, an offer arrived from Boca Juniors. I considered it seriously, and it seemed like a good possibility.

However, I started to analyse potential situations in Boca – more to do with external factors than the team. I saw all the fuss that is always made around big clubs when they are about to bring about a change, and decided that it was not the right time.

In that moment, Boca’s needs didn’t fit with mine. With Inter Miami, that synergy happened – and so, almost seven years after arriving in Atlanta, I went back to MLS.

As I said at the beginning, when I came to the United States in 2016, Atlanta was much more to me than football. It offered me a new life as a coach.

I was able to maintain a good quality of life, but without giving up what I love and without giving up competing. The MLS is very competitive, but we managed to build a team from scratch – it was the first year of the franchise – and went on to win the championship in 2018.

"like in atlanta, i want to build this team into champions – i'm sure leo will help us do that"

We also promoted great players, such as Miguel Almirón. “Join me for two years, and then you’re going to play in Europe,” I told him, so he would sign with Atlanta. That’s exactly how it happened; just over two years later, Newcastle came looking for him.

I think it’s the same with Inter Miami this time. It is another refuge for me, because of everything I went through in such a long and exhausting period with the Mexican national team.

But my ambition is also the same, and now I have Lionel Messi (below) again.

I have been asked the same question about him many times. “What is it like to coach Messi?”

I did it before at Barcelona, and with the Argentina national team – and I always have the same answer.

He is an outstanding player on the pitch. The best. But a normal person off it. That certainly makes it easier for coaches to work with him.

Like I did in Atlanta, I want to build Inter Miami into a team that can be champions. I want to be part of the history of this club.

I’m sure Leo will help us do that.

Author: The Coaches' Voice

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