The last professional adventure of Jorge Sampaoli. The coach remained between April and September of last year at Flamengo, a club that dismissed him due to poor results. Since then, the Casildense had been away from the media, although always attentive to football. This Wednesday the former La Roja coach gave an interview to the newspaper Brand from Spain, where he spoke about topics that have marked his career.
One of the first things he was asked about is his controversial process leading the Argentine team in the 2018 World Cup in Russia, in which he ended up falling out with some of the team’s leaders. Sampaoli does not dramatize: “I take care of mine. Throughout my career, I always knew that I could not take care of the joys and sorrows of the public. Neither when we win nor when we lose. Otherwise, I would be eating the movie that the system proposes to you. That was a complicated process. The team was not that armed. “We made efforts to put it together, but it didn’t happen.”he began saying.
Then, he went further and confessed that one of the big problems at that time was not having been able to count on Juan Manuel Lillo, a Spaniard who was part of his coaching staff at La Roja and who today works at Manchester City: “One of my problems in the Argentine National Team was not having been able to bring Juanma Lillo. He would have solved many things for me with his experience. Argentina was a fire and I went with great enthusiasm. And I don’t regret it. but Lillo would have helped me solve things that overwhelmed me at that moment”.
Additionally, he spoke about the participation of Lionel Messi in that process, who was the captain of that team. He maintained that “he knew what there was, with a complicated process… and he did what he could.”
In the interview, the Casildense spoke about current football and He made a detailed comparison between Marcelo Bielsa and Pep Guardiola: “’Bielsismo’ is a more direct attack concept. He wants to get to the end zone of the field faster. In ‘Guardiolismo’, with the so-called positional game, the players have a certain freedom. It is more associative. There is more coexistence in the center of the field. ‘Bielsismo’ is more direct and in defense is one against one. ‘Lillismo’ is more zonal in defense.”
Despite not winning the Champions League, he still thinks that Pep is the best of all. He even tells how he experienced the elimination of the English team in the quarterfinals of the tournament at the hands of Real Madrid: “That Manchester City lost to Real was difficult for me to digest. Madrid makes others drop to their level, if they are teams superior to them. That game I suffered a lot, because I was with Pep and Juanma Lillo. Guardiola has a harder time in the qualifiers, but he is still number one in the world, despite the fact that he has the best players. But I like other technicians like Míchel, Mikel Arteta, Xabi Alonso, De Zerbi, Xavi Hernández… They have managed to take advantage of things from Pep, but with their own stamp.”
Finally, admits that he would like to direct againbut always hand in hand with a good project: “I would accept training in South America. I would also like to direct in Europe. Or anywhere in the world where there is a serious and lasting project. In Brazil there is excessive madness, and they throw out a coach every three games. In Europe, I perceive a little more patience.”
