Scouting, WhatsApp messages and Messi – my two weeks as Argentina assistant coach
Nothing will make a journalist doubt himself more than the knowledge that their work will be read by actual football people – but I had to give it a go
I was in the Jardyland bar in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s biggest city, watching Manchester City beat Everton on 10 February when I was appointed interim assistant coach of Argentina. The offer in the WhatsApp was clear: you put together scouting reports on Nigeria and Ivory Coast, who Argentina were supposed to be facing in friendlies in China in March, and we’ll call you assistant coach and explain how we go about preparing for games.
It was almost a decade ago that Matías Manna, now a key member of Argentina’s backroom staff, having read my book Angels With Dirty Faces, had got in touch to discuss a theory he had about the team in the 1950s. This offer he was making was a gimmick, obviously, a joke; I’m not deluded enough to think otherwise. But equally, everybody else is deluded if they think I’m not going to be talking for the rest of my life about my stint as the assistant manager of the world champions when they prepared for their second successive Copa América triumph. Lionel Messi? Yeah, he played under me. Good lad, yeah.
