César Luis Menotti, coach of Argentina, world champion in 1978, who died on Sunday, leaves the image of an uncompromising apostle of the beautiful game, darkened by the dark years of the military dictatorship.
Long hair, always a cigarette in his hand until he quit in 2011, Menotti died at the age of 85. Officially born on November 5, 1938 – even if he celebrated his birthday on October 22 – in Rosario, the great breeding ground of Argentine football, the first coach to have won the World Cup with the Albiceleste defended an offensive and offensive game all his life. creative, honoring movement and the search for spaces.
“You can lose a match, but you cannot lose the dignity of playing football well,” repeated “El Flaco” (The Skinny), in reference to his slender silhouette. Initially a midfielder in major Argentine clubs (Rosario Central, Racing, Boca Juniors), he ended his playing career in Brazil in 1970, after being teammate of Pelé, “the greatest player of all time” according to him, in Santos.
Having become a coach, he raised Huracan, a small club from Buenos Aires, to the rank of champion in 1973. A success which earned him the chance to be coach of the national team with the aim of winning the 1978 World Cup at home. The bet paid off and the Albiceleste of Passarella, Kempes and Fillol won its first world title.
Reaching the final thanks to a controversial 6-0 against Peru, the Argentinians defeated the Dutch deprived of Johan Cruyff at the end of a suffocating final, won 3-1 after extra time.
But the feat has its dark side. The sporting event was exploited by the military junta in power (1976-1983), which prided itself on “a country at peace” while multiplying kidnappings, torture and clandestine assassinations of opponents. Menotti, although close to the left-wing circles targeted by the repression, was subsequently accused of having turned a blind eye to this reality.
“We were waiting for Menotti to say something, to make a gesture of solidarity, but he said nothing. It was painful and disgusting on his part. He too was playing politics with his silence,” the former political prisoner and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel criticized him. “I knew about prisons, about the use of gegene, I can’t be an idiot. What I never would have imagined was the rest: that they were throwing guys from planes, the 30,000 missing…” he defended himself in 2014 to the magazine El Grafico.
Winner in 1979 of the Under-20 World Cup which revealed Diego Maradona, Menotti arrived in 1982 after the elimination of Argentina in the second round of the Spanish World Cup. The military had left power shortly before, defeated in the Falklands War.
He then frequented the big Argentinean clubs (Boca Juniors, River Plate) and Spanish (FC Barcelona, Atlético Madrid), but his record was only enriched by two Cups and a Supercup with Barça. Despite this, he defends his playing philosophy vehemently against that, diametrically opposed, of his successor at the head of the Albiceleste Carlos Bilardo, also world champion in 1986 and for whom only victory is beautiful, even at the price of a rough game. “It’s like saying that the most important thing in life is to breathe,” replied Menotti.
“Handcuffing” versus “bilardism”: the opposition between the two men who cordially hated each other deeply and lastingly divides footballing Argentina. The handcuffing school claims some illustrious heirs: Ricardo La Volpe, Jorge Valdano and Pep Guardiola.