Javier Mascherano is set to remain the coach of the Argentina U20 national team and take over the U23 Olympic team for a few more years.
Mascherano is expected to stay on as coach of the Argentina U20 national team. According to Hernán Claus of Diario Olé, he will stay on as coach of the U20 team and will be the coach of the Argentina U23 Olympic squad.
The South American qualifiers for the Olympics, the Pre-Olympic tournament, is expected to start in January of next year. Mascherano has not yet managed the Olympic team and has only coached the U20 team since taking over as coach in January of last year.
The Argentina U20 national team were eliminated in the Round of 16 of the U20 World Cup on Wednesday. Mascherano himself spoke about his future following the team’s elimination.
A separate report by Esteban Edul states that AFA president Claudio Tapia is convinced about the project and that it does not depend on the results. He is also going to respect his contract which is until 2026.
A month ago i never believed Argentina U20 could reach the knock outs. We were bad. But I see improvement. I see talents too. I also see a bit selfishness in players infront of goal. I see Masch improved a little too. A little. Its a learning curve for everyone. I hope Masch can instill the ‘Team First” idea into our young players. We could have beaten Nigeria if we passed in the box.
Players being selfish is part of manager responsibility to begin with. So its should not be an excuse.
AFA stuck with Scaloni who didn’t have the greatest start to his Argentina coaching career as a head coach. Yes, he managed to beat Brazil by parking the bus but his first 2 years were not very impressive and before the COPA his back to back draws raised a lot of eyebrows. However AFA persisted with Scaloni and he delivered ! May be thats the plan with Mascherano but Masch is a different kind of personality and very stubborn person so only time will tell how he will do in future!
Scaloni started badly in Copa 2019 but I shall remind you his team still finished 3rd place and matched up well with solid Brazillian team . In fact we should have earned two legit penalties from two fouls on Aguero inside the box. We hit the goal post few times aswell and some shots shaving their goaline.
Masche and his team has home soil adventage and losing by 2 goals against Nigeria not Brazil.
Last time Argentina hosted this tournament, they scored a whooping 27 goals.
Aimar and Placente is doing a great job in U17 ,They find out many talents from overseas and locals . But U20 keeps on changing coach in recent years . Different coach may have different preference in choosing player which to a certain extent affect development of a young player .
Though mascherano isn’t the best ,he maintains good relationships with U17 and Scaloni . Perhaps it is a team work project for the next 10 years .
If you emphasize on result ,this decision should be very bad. However if you view U20 as a platform for youngsters and stepping stone for national team ,persistence is the most important thing .
Mascherano did some mistakes vs Nigeria. including1, bench Soule 2,Substitue off Aviles 3,Didn’t use 3DM or continue choosing Di lollo and Tomas Gerth 4, Using double no.9 . But overall this u20 team improve a lot . I can see mascherano is trying to improve both himself and the team .
I am totally open minded whether he remains or not . I will emphasize on whether he can promote more talent young players both from overseas and locals . and connect U20 with u17,u23 . It is a pathway to the national team .
Mixed feelings about this. I like AFA being persistent and wanting continuity. That’s great. Still, I wonder what credentials Masche has as a coach? Perserverance can quickly turn into fool’s stubbornness…
Why cant Aimar take over youth team including U20 & U23( Olympics) ? It will start being a seamless transition to NT for genuine talents.
Chiqui Tapia is perhaps drunk on WC success or what it is that he is so much in love with Mascherano? He is a naive Maradona-type of a manager. I thought that they were going to promote Diego Placente. I mean WTF, Tapia just disqualified Argentina from the Olympics with a clueless coach again. Scaloni or one of his staff mates should have been in charge of the Olympic team. It’s an unfortunate Tata Mascherano era for youth teams.
U20 has been really bad for the past 15 years + or so… Just look at it.
Watched South Korea beat Ecuador. Wow. That is what a well drilled and coached team plays like. ECUADOR are a rising power in South America but completely outplayed by the Koreans.
This Argentina doesn’t look promising as far as individual talents ago. Mostly mediocre players most. May be Tomas Aviles and Barco could prove me wrong. Romero, Soule and Perrone guys are way over rated. Carboni and Redondo are decent even though they looked second class against their respective Nigerian counterparts. When you think that the best no.9 that we have at u 20 level is this Rosario player then we should really be worried about this position in the near future. And also why should have made more effort on Retegui.
IMO ,This U20 isn’t the best in the tournament, but some players clearly have potential .
1,Soule and Carboni
clearly have the potential to succeed in europe and national team
2, Redondo ,Tanlongo
Redondo looks like busquets ,he has the body and techniques, just need to improve his speed .Tanlongo is a weaker version mascherano ,with times he can improve a lot
3, Perrone
Can be a good no.6 but at this stage he is very weak in defense.
4,Barco ,Aguirre
Skilful but very raw ,especially Barco
5, Aviles ,Gomez,luca romero
not top class but useful ,aren’t up to the standard of Romero ,Nahuel Perez ot Lisandro Martinez or garnacho . But if they improve ,I can’t see why not can’t be used as a back up for national team
Others ,such Puch ,Veliz are moderate
it’s again an experiment towards future of our young lads and young coach.
Masche did average in coaching but he needs experience. When we wr looking for results it will take time under masche.. we need to be patient I think we will get best results under him AFA should stick him by giving him with couple more chances
Wow fail miserably at the WCQ and the WC and your punishement is the olympics qualifiers and another go at the WCQ!! Bizarro world indeed!!
Man, now I want to go and coach at the Jr levels for Argentina! We’re talking backwards job security heaven!
Mascherano has been given a second and third chance; however, he himself needs to learn and improved a lot to become a good coach. Every single decision counts and make a huge impact. Benching Soule against Nigeria is questionable.
Failed twice in space of few months, including at home soil against average team. Pretty good achievement. I’m sure other u20 national teams are thrilled with this news.
I have mixed feelings about him staying, coaching youth is not easy especially at the age of 19 and 20, you never have your best players available and the goal is to develop, winning trophies is only to entertain, so we have to be patient with him.
Masche is a rookie and has much to learn still but I don’t blame the loss to Nigeria entirely on him. It was a combination of bad luck, players underperforming and of course Mascherano making some wrong decisions too. I suppose I don’t mind him continuing to be in charge as much as other posters here. It’s a matter of small margins in football sometimes, had Romero’s long range efforts gone in instead of kissing the post, we could have had a different outcome…
i am very happy and more than that to see that AFA the last 3 or 4 years FINALLY start to work so damn profesionaly. people with deep knowledge of the sport entered and stay there.
i am PROUD for AFA. the national teams organization the stracture of them and all the people that working the projects of AFA.
Bless to God that i live the days that AFA stop working with auto pilot.
of course i speak about the national teams departments. Not about club football and competitions about that. in that area AFA is same level with Africa. with all the respect to African club football.
This is a bad decision. Mascherano is a clueless clown and will waste this generation.
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