César Luis Menotti, who died at the age of 85, was an ardent debater, chain smoker, lover of tango, tall, thin and idealistic like a Quixote against the windmills of bad football and the maker of a historic change in the Argentine national team.
Born in Rosario, homeland of Lionel Messi and Ángel Di Maríamaintained: “Who makes the differences? The coaches with their tactics? It’s a lie, the one who makes the difference is the player.”
That squad was established with the goals of ‘Matador’ Mario Kempes, the saves of Ubaldo Fillol, the captaincy of Daniel Passarella, the antics of Rene Housemannthe strategic cunning of Osvaldo ‘Pitón’ Ardiles.
Argentina He left behind 20 years of disappointments. Nobody wanted to play for the National Team. The players were whistled by mocking and pessimistic fans.
The so-called Swedish Disaster weighed like an emotional burden. Argentina was beaten and eliminated in the first round of that 1958 World Cup.
Menotti, of undoubted influence in his country and in the rest of the region, he rescued a legacy: “The Argentine footballer has a DNA, a genetics, a school, respected throughout the world“.
But the 1978 World Cup left a stigma on him. He won in the middle of a dictatorship with 30,000 missing, according to humanitarian entities.
Menotti He once said: “I was used, of course. Nobody could imagine that people were thrown into the ocean.” She couldn’t avoid the reproaches.
As a young man he had been a Peronist, like his father, and then a communist, convinced by a railway union leader. He never campaigned politically or participated in demonstrations.
He had begun his football crusade by directing an unforgettable team: the prodigious Huracán, Argentine champion in 1973.
Along these lines, he praised Josep Guardiola: “Some people proclaimed that you can’t win by playing nice. That you have to win and that’s it. It’s over. There you have Guardiola: he plays nice, he won lots of titles”.
The romanticism of Menotti He did not deny preparation, improvement and learning “until the day of death,” he stated.
Another quixotic side was his dialectical fight with Carlos Bilardo, another World Champion coach, in Mexico 1986.
The so-called ‘bilardismo’ stated that “the only thing that matters is winning” and Menotti responded: “It’s like saying in life that the only thing that matters is breathing.”
“Now there is more farce in the coaches, they are not capable of holding ideas and discussing them”he criticized.
They both coached Maradona. Bilardo in Mexico 1986. Menotti in the Albiceleste U-20 world champion in Japan 1979. It was revenge for not including him in 1978 because he did not see him mature.
And then he directed it in Barcelona. The ‘culés’ won three cups under the DT’s command.
In his personal Olympus of the greatest, he placed Alfredo Di Stéfano, Johan Cruyff and Maradonaalthough he had a favorite: “Pelé was the greatest of all time, an extraterrestrial.”
He said of Messi: “He always plays well. I never saw him play even regularly.” He reflected on Maradona: “It was an exceptional thing. He would have played football until he was 50 if he had had a normal life.”
As a footballer, he played for his beloved Rosario Central, Racing, Boca and Pelé’s Santos, among others. He kicked hard like a mule. He had exquisite technique. But, according to him, he was “capricious and annoying.”
It is the verse of a tango. Menotti He smoked like a chimney. At the time of the National Team he reached three packs of cigarettes a day. One day in 2011, he was hospitalized.
“I gave it up easily. A little message from Nano Serrat (his friend Joan Manuel, Catalan singer-songwriter) helped me. He told me that he was glad that I’m fine, but why don’t you stop messing around with the cigarette?”
In his bohemian nightlife as a young man he frequented milongas, neighborhood dance centers. He met his admired tango orchestra directors such as Osvaldo Pugliese and Aníbal ‘Pichuco’ Troilo.
From the readings, he rescued a phrase from the poet and short story writer Jorge Luis Borges: “From order, all rebellion.” Menotti said that “football is order and adventure, not cowardly surrendering to what the environment proposes.”
He adapted metaphors: “Violins have obligations in an orchestra, right? Well, but they should never prevent them from having the courage to make personal decisions.”
He said he had suffered with the final of champion Argentina in Qatar 2022 against France (3-3 and 4-2 on penalties), but his quixotism did not make him lose his mind: “It is a football match and you can win or lose.”
Source: Ambito
I am Pierce Boyd, a driven and ambitious professional working in the news industry. I have been writing for 24 Hours Worlds for over five years, specializing in sports section coverage. During my tenure at the publication, I have built an impressive portfolio of articles that has earned me a reputation as an experienced journalist and content creator.
