How will your team play the final?
I’m not a prisoner to systems. It’s more about the coach’s intelligence to adapt the team to the circumstances. For me, in particular, I would love to play with three defenders and two wing-backs. That’s how my Liga de Quito team, who won the 2008 Copa Libertadores and played in the 2008 Club World Cup final against United, played. But with San Lorenzo I can’t do it: I don’t have quick centre-backs. Here we started with a 4-4-2, which was a 4-1-4-1 sometimes. And now we are trying out a 4-3-3, with the two wingers coming back more or less to defend according to the opponent that we face.
Argentina is divided between Bilardi followers and Menotti followers…what remains of this?
I am one of the few who was lucky enough to work with both of them. During my time as a player I was in the national team with Menotti. I was part of the provisional squad for the 1982 World Cup and he left me out. In the 1990 World Cup I was with Bilardo. There is a book that speaks of Bilardo and Menotti as two extremists...
Two extremes that have dominated Argentine football.
We agree that no-one has the absolute truth. Both were world champions, but in Argentina the possibility of making the big debate was lost, of sitting them down to talk. Everything was divided among themselves, even with the reporters taking part, there was no dialectical discussion. And for me, both had interesting things.
What stayed with you?
From Bilardi, the preset movements. He was ahead. In 1986 Argentina started to work with three at the back. Never had it been done before. It was a revolution. And from Menotti, he impressed with me the power of his word to convince the player, one of the big problems for a coach. With Menotti I experienced something sensational. I saw how he talked to a footballer and transformed him in a short space of time, and I could not believe it. It is a power that he had outside of his technical abilities.
How do you convince them?
Firstly, it’s how I convince them and afterwards how I maintain them. For the latter, you need results. Look, when you arrive to a dressing-room the players look at you, they scrutinise you, they wait for you to say something. According to your career, you have won something. But the footballer is alive and ready. I, for example, arrived to a San Lorenzo that had just become champions.
What legacy did Pizzi leave?
There I go. I grabbed them and told them: “If you want to continue growing we have to change, yes or yes. And they looked at me as if they were saying: “If we are champions, why do we have to change!”
A normal reaction...
I told them: “Well, if you defend as you did in this championship that you just won you will not win anything again.” The first month was complicated, because I worked a lot with the defensive part. The team did not have a sense of equilibrium. And I knew that to win the Libertadores, that was the obsession of the entity, it was imperative. And I spoke a lot with the team’s leaders...
Who are the leaders?
San Lorenzo doesn’t have one, they have a lot. They are Romagnoli, Ortigoza, Mercier, Ceto, and now the club has added Yepes. And that was my tactic, to speak with them to prolong the discourse of the coach. I explained to them the reasons why they had to change. That was my first achievement at this club. We conceded only one goal at home throughout the whole of the Libertadores.
What football do they play now in Argentina?
Football that is very ‘locked’. They leave very little space in the middle, they press a lot, a lot more than in Europe. It’s crazy. The first does not win against the last. That’s what makes the Argentina league so difficult for a coach and so nice for the spectator. And that is for the idiosyncrasies of the Argentinian, who becomes stronger in the face of adversity. And bringing that out from the inside is what characterises us, it’s what I call fire, and it’s what we have to bring out against Madrid.
What do you think of Ancelotti?
It would be presumptuous to say that I see him as more of a coach today, but I never imagined that he would do so well at Madrid. Do not forget that the Italian mentality was always very important for him. There they have very rigid tactical concepts. And for me, nowadays, I’m glad to see Madrid play. It’s been a long time since I saw a team win with such authority in England as Madrid did in Liverpool. I am a big fan of European football. And having said that, I prefer Barcelona.
Your team wear their colours!
I have a Spanish parents, my grandparents are from Mallorca. Therefore, I am a Barça fan. I followed them from the time of Cruyff. I went to watch Van Gaal train. Also I went to see Madrid. I was there for one week with Pellegrini, speaking with him, watching his methods.
How was Ancelotti improved Madrid?
Mourinho won everything on the counter! With Porto, with Inter, including with Madrid. I looked at his face in Madrid and I saw a sad man. Because his style did not fit with the idiosyncrasies of the institution. He could not play in Madrid as desired, because of the history of the club. He did not feel that the style of play of that Madrid was his. He did not like it.
And Ancelotti?
Sometimes he does it, but as a resource. They go out with speed and with terrible precision, but they cannot play that game due to their history, although they know it.
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