Two Argentine coaches heading to two different parts of the world.
After reports came out of Italy on Tuesday regarding BIELSA not signing his contract with Lazio, the club confirmed today that he has signed with them and will become the new head coach.
Strong reports out of South America and specifically Paraguay are that Gerardo MARTINO will sign with the Paraguay National Team and will become their new head coach.
Reports in the media are indicating that Jorge Sampaoli and his staff have decided to stay with Sevilla. It has been said that they want to take advantage of this opportunity and will close their ears to all the offers coming their way from Argentina. This is what they have decided for now, but Sampaoli hasn’t ruled out coaching the national team one day. Sampaoli is looking forward to possibly coaching Sevilla in the Champions League.
Julio OLARTICOECHEA will coach the Argentina Olympic team.
With Tata MARTINO stepping down as coach of Argentina, lots of questions were asked as to who would coach the team at the Olympics. OLARTICOECHEA is currently the coach of the Argentina U20 team.
It’s never a dull moment with the Argentina National Team.
Juan Sebastian VERON (current president of Estudiantes de la Plata) is travelling to Spain to hold talks with Jorge SAMPAOLI (coach at Sevilla). The reports are that VERON will try to convince SAMPAOLI to take the Argentina coaching job. There is also a clause in SAMPAOLI’s contract which would allow him to leave Sevilla to go coach the Argentina National Team.
Where do you even begin?
After years (more like decades) of corruption, it’s all caught up to the AFA (Argentine FA). Julio GRONDONA, president and unofficial Godfather of not only the AFA but of FIFA, passed away in 2014. Ever since then, it’s all been downhill for the federation.
The domino’s had been lining up and it was tilting when MESSI posted an Instagram picture calling the AFA “a disaster”. But the first domino fell once MESSI retired from the National Team. That’s when everything slowly started coming out. Here are some of the things we know regarding this massive mess that is Argentine football (aside from the fact that Lionel MESSI has retired and Gerardo MARTINO has stepped down as coach).
There have been arguments between players of the Argentina National Team and the AFA (see Lionel MESSI’s Instagram comment as an idea).
There’s little to no planning going on in Argentina at the moment. The Olympics are coming up next month and Tata MARTINO (or whoever is going to run that team) only has 12 players available at his disposal as clubs (not only in Europe but specifically in Argentina) are not releasing their players for the tournament. Oh and speaking of Tata MARTINO, he had not gotten paid in over 7 months.
The president of the Argentine Olympic Committee came out on Tuesday and said there’s a 50% chance the team won’t even make it to Rio. Furthermore, there’s talk coming out of Uruguay at the moment to see whether or not they would be able to replace Argentina at the Olympics next month should they not be able to make it.
They don’t know how the first division league will be like in Argentina next season or even when it will start.
The federation currently has no president. Every club president appears to be throwing their weight around.
The AFA is currently bankrupt and have no money to even feed their players. Several of them (players) have missed out on joining the U20 team because there was no money to get them to join the team. Furthermore, just like for the Olympics, some clubs in Argentina aren’t even releasing their players to join the U20 team.
FIFA wants to get involved and help fix the mess going on but has threatened to kick the AFA out if the Argentine government (who’s not doing so well either, but that’s a whole other story) gets involved.
This is the general idea of what is happening in Argentine football at the moment. As you can see, it goes way beyond the National Team.
