Gerardo Tata Martino: “I wanted to coach Argentina at the 2018 World Cup”

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Former Argentina national team coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino gave an interview where he spoke about the World Cup, why he left the AFA and this generation of players.

Gerardo Martino is presently coaching the Mexican national team but he has had an impressive resume. From coaching Newell’s Old Boys in Argentina to giants FC Barcelona and the Argentina national team, Martino has gained experience. Tata helped lead Argentina to two consecutive Copa America finals where the team fell short both years.

Martino gave an interview with CD.F.CL, de Chile where he spoke about it all. Here’s what he had to say:

“I still wanted to be the coach of the Argentina national team at the World Cup in Russia, of course.

“In terms of football, I’m satisfied with what happened with Argentina because we played in two Copa America finals and we lost them against Chile on penalty kicks. So from what was seen in terms of football, it was very hopeful.”

Tata Martino coached Argentina from 2014 having taken over from Alejandro Sabella who had managed them to a World Cup final. He took over the reigns from 2014 and left shortly after the 2016 Copa America. Here is what he had to say as to why he left the AFA:

“I’d gone through a difficult time with those in charge and because of that, there weren’t many reasons to continue with the AFA. However, they are now much more organized.”

Regarding current coach Lionel Scaloni and the team:

“As for the work that Lionel Scaloni is doing, there’s a change of players which has started and that’s logical. And that’s why I see the Argentina national team with a good future. This generation is replacing one of the best in the history of Argentine football.”

49 Comments

  1. […] Former Argentina national team coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino gave an interview where he spoke about the World Cup, why he left the AFA and this generation of players. Gerardo Martino is presently coaching the Mexican national team but he has had an impressive resume. From coaching Newell’s Old Boys in Argentina to giants FC Barcelona and the Argentina national team, Martino has gained experience. Tata helped lead Argentina to two consecutive Copa America finals where the team […] Gerardo Tata Martino: β€œI wanted to coach Argentina at the 2018 World Cup” […]

  2. There is a rumour that AFA is planning a friendly with brazil on now vacant september international break( most probably it wont happen). The reason is that team need a preparation match after a long absent(or a financial gain from messi vs neymar)

  3. Did anyone of you guys heard the rumour β€œMessi moving to Inter” I dont believe its true but I think it would be refreshing for Messi. What you guys think?

    • Inter Milan ka aukaat nahi hai sapne mein bhi sochne ki, messi moving to Man City is much realistic considering best squad in Europe and both desperately wanted to UCL.

    • Messi’s father is buying property in Milan most likely for tax reasons. Messi will stay with Barcelona.
      @romance just because you want Messi to Man City does not make it realistic

      • Because of Pep, messi might consider Man City move and they have best squad in Europe. I know messi staying at Barcelona, if he decided to move then it will be man city.

  4. B.Leno is choosen best goalkeeper of Premiere league this season,so we should not be hard on Emi Martinez for bench warming as he has to compete against the best of the Premiere league but till now Emi Martinez is on his best form.He should be in Argentina team.

    • If their player of the season gets outperformed statistically by his backup, they really should take the opportunity to sell Leno and have Martinez replace him. Emiliano Martinez has been with Arsenal for 10 years and he LOVES the club, but has only featured in 14 Premier League games in total. It’s his time!

    • Romero was back up to the best GK in the world De Gea until 2018 and played all matches for Argentina, it doesn’t matter for me and scaloni also prefer to choose no1 who gets regular playing time. Emi Martinez won’t be call up if he hardly played 10 matches next season, better to move from Arsenal to get playing time.

  5. In case Fernando batista fails in taking Argentina Olympics team to the final of the tournament then hopefully AFA can replace him with Jorge Celico he is an Argentine and coached Ecuador u20 team in 2019 U20 WC and his team reached semi finals in that tournament while Argentina U20 were knocked out at round of 16.

  6. Martinez quarta, foyth, Nicolas Gonzales, zaracho,buendia, almada are linked with Leeds United . reports suggest that bielsa wants to build a mini Argentine team in Leeds United similar to the mini Portugese team in wolves

  7. Rodrigo De Paul was Man of the Match in Udinese’s 2-1 win over Juventus with an 8.1 rating on whoscored.com

    De Paul vs Juventus:

    84 touches
    46 accurate passes (out of 51) = 90% pass accuracy
    8/8 long balls
    2 key passes
    2/2 dribbles won
    2 fouls won
    4 interceptions
    6 tackles
    9 recoveries

    De Paul 8.1 rating
    Musso 7.1 rating
    Dybala 7.3 rating
    Ronaldo 6.6 πŸ™‚

    Great to see De Paul with such a performance after the news of Juventus’ interest in him!
    Which team/coach/style would suit him best? Juventus/Lazio/AC Milan/Inter have all expressed interest in him, right?

      • It might be. Pioli will remain as coach for 2 more years, and I think De Paul’s versatility can be utilized well in Pioli’s 4-2-3-1 system, being able to play as DMF, CMF, AMF and LMF

    • He was mainly on defensive mode….and played like deep lying midfielder(just in front of CB most of the time). Going to a BIG club…will surely produce best out of him.

      • Yep. Reminds me of myself last year when gazzaniga had a great run for a few games and I was eager to have him called up. His form didn’t last long and then disappeared again.

        Martinez doing great for 6 games but I agree with your point, let him play regularly and see if he benches Leno.

        (Btw I’m not saying Martinez = Gazza)

  8. I usually don’t like being harsh on people but i totally agree with Dfox on this. I mean, what is this guy Martino talking about??

    Despite that we have one copa title less than Uruguay, Argentina is by far the most successful team in the history of copa americas, with 14 titles, reaching the most finals by a far cry ahead from the second, having the most wins, scored the most goals and having the best goalscoring ratio than any other south american team.

    Loosing to nobodies like Chile and especially with the way we lost both finals on the penalty shootout, was a disastrous, unthinkable scenario and still this guy felt hopefull for the future.

    You see, it is not only the race car. Even if you have the best and faster race car but the driver is mediocre to say at best and especially with such mentallity, second place would have been a success for him.

    A great machine needs the right people on the helm to unleash it’s true potential and not such loosers who feel happy driving on second gear!

    Outrageous comment!

  9. If Montiel goes to West Ham he will be sure starter there as Right back position in West ham is quite open.Zaballata has become old so Montiel is sure starter there.West Ham just need to raise their offer as he is only 23 and they can also loan him out to any club if he does not perform well.Montiel with speed can be best right back for Argentina but right now he lacks speed and defensive skill but in Premiere league he will be tested

        • depend with who you compare him my friend πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚
          if you compare him with Pinola yes he is speed demon πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

          but except joke his speed is ok for modern football.

        • Foyth is speed demon without the ball you can see his run vs Brazil in copa 2019 when he ran behind Gabriel Jesus in 2nd goal

      • Montiel is one hard working kid that have potential to make one good career.
        he is one good RB but nothing more than that right now.
        Personally because you ask me and i have to speak honestly to you i have seen passed from River plate many RB like him.
        he is not something extraordinary. at least not yet.
        in future i don t know.
        but if he is smart he should stay with us. he can improve little bit more.

        if he go to Europe now especially to teams like West ham then he will be just one more RB that go for money and give limit to his personal standards.

        this is my opinion because you ask me.

      • If we look at (probably) the best LB, Bayern Munich Davies and RB, Liverpool’s Alexander Arnold, our current backs are far behind. The days of Zanetti, Sorin and Tarantini are long gone.

        • In terms of LB yeah I agree that Tagliafico is decent but cant be compared to davies or arnold but in next season Ajax are going to use Lisandro martinez in LB role and then there is facundo medina who will play for lens fc in liegue 1 those two players are of age 21/22 and maybe in within next two sessions could perform better than davies or arnold.

  10. Wait wait wait……………if it ain’t Tata himself talking about what? coaching The Albiceleste in where? 2018 WC, are you F***ING kidding me?? and then has the audacity to speak about the two back to back losses to an INFERIOR team in the same G damn competition and said this:

    “β€œIN TERMS OF FOOTBALL, I’M SATISFIED WITH WHAT HAPPENED WITH ARGENTINA BECAUSE WE PLAYED IN TWO COPA AMERICA FINALS AND WE LOST THEM AGAINST CHILE ON PENALTY KICKS. SO FROM WHAT WAS SEEN IN TERMS OF FOOTBALL, IT WAS VERY HOPEFUL.”
    SATISFIED!!!!!!!, go F yourself and that would be very satisfying for all of us, me especially.
    It was a great JOY to see ARGENTINA trash MIGHTY Mexico cough cough who were undefeated at the time and riding high by what seemed like an off the street causal fan/ex-player/unproven coach …….seeing his fatass squirm on the sidelines was VERY satisfying for me to watch.

    Chubby, took an ALREADY great team that should have WON the damn WC and added nothing, his refusal to plug in new players where needed, or at the very least change tactics when needed was none existent.
    Things would have been a whole lot different if they at least won ONE damn Copa.

    • Spot on. Considering this shit head made a head start with a win over Germany with new faces. But after that he closed the door to them.

    • well, hindsight is 20/20 – today we have the opportunity of looking back to compare managers and personally, i would select Tata for 2018 over the batshit Sampoli and Bauza any day. Perhaps people prefer Bauza or Sampa to Tata but i thought they were absolute trash.

      Looking back, I thought we played beautiful attacking. something no other manager ever came close to achieving in the past decade or so. now if that continued through 2018, i can only assume our results would have been significantly better in WC18.

      Btw, i’m curious, in 2015 or 2016, which “new” players would have came down to save us all? Who would you have called up and who would you have dropped?

      • I agree a 100%, ARG under Tata played beautifully, just like he did with Barcelona (i could be mistaken but didn’t they score the most points in one season under him?), gave the City of Atlanta ONLY the 2nd championship from all the sports played because we are pathetic when it comes to sports (I live here) and made Mexico very respectable…….. all that is good BUT

        ARG was one of the oldest teams in Brazil if not the oldest, great team yes but age catches up with everybody and it badly showed in their lack of speed both on defense and offense during the two Copas, shitty-Chile on the other had were organized and Speedy and Tata simply had no answer for them.
        The man had no plan B, he refused to call up any younger-faster players, players Like Di Maria, Higuian and even Kun were all comfortable because they knew nothing was going to change or even challenge their spots.
        He was scared shitless to change the formula that got ARG to the WC final….isn’t that what a coach is supposed to do, fix what needs to be fixed.

        Now, I never defended either Sam or Bauza, even though I said it many times before and I’ll say it again, Sam came to the aide of his country when they were down on their knees, desperate and begging when he didn’t even have to. He had a job that paid him well and his team was doing very well………lot of respect for that, he took the job when all the wannabees were just running their mouths like Simeone and Pochettino while looking from a distance.
        The idea was for Tata to win at least 1 Copa and then by all means continue into the WC but losing to the same team in a row, a team that never won Copa and you won it 14 times! one could have been a fluke but to lose twice in the exact same manner was unforgivable.
        It should have never gone into PKs, Maybe the first time, but the 2nd, especially the way ARGENTINA was playing unlike the 1st time when they seemed to have stumbled into the final.

      • Hey choripan, regarding new players who could have been added in 2015/2016, what about Dybala and icardi?

          • > Dybala, Icardi, Papu Gomez, Pastore, Lamela, Lanzini

            Guys, these are all great call outs. Who would you have dropped for one of them? I would have dropped Higuain but i dont know about any others that are clear.

  11. Tata’s decision to stick with the same aging team along with insane crazy & psychopathic tactics from Sampaoli played a significant role in our disastrous 2018 world cup.

    • I remember hearing people chant Paredes as a saviour. Paredes wouldn’t have done jack shit if he were there instead of Masche. same ol’ results under batshit Sampaoli. Who else would have been better? Sampa roles 100X more significant than player selection.

      Fuck i wish Tata was selected instead of Sampa. We would have done so much better with the “aging team”. Especially if he continued after 2016 and avoided disastrous Bauza and Sampa.

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