The Alchemist

(Already published as an article in Sunday T2 of The Telegraph)

It is not every day that any city or village or any place, in any sense of the word, gets excited about a first-of-a-kind public event where men would be chasing each other and kicking. But 25th May 1867 was a day when half the city promised to turn up to see a bunch of grown-up men kicking around. Unfortunately, nobody kicked none and nothing owing to the inclement weather and floods. When the organizers decided to postpone the kicking event to June the same year, they found it extremely difficult to find a ground sane enough for the insane event. So, last minute frantic application had to be made to a committee of more aggressive men who did not kick but hit with a cane handle attached to a flat-fronted willow-wood blade. The committee allowed the organizers to kick around on their ground in the coastal barrio of Palermo in Buenos Aires. Football was thus born in Argentina with the support from the Buenos Aires Cricket Committee.

Flash forward hundred and fifty years, a boy named Damián became one of the 700,000 that are born in Argentina every year. This boy, like many others, was born in a family that laboured hard to make ends meet. Somehow, his parents managed to send him to a school called “La Sagrada Familia”, which, as Damian described in an interview thirty years later, was somewhere between public and private. His mother would work ten hours a day cleaning houses, and his old man would work in double shifts in the port. The mother would leave the kid at the bus stop at 6:30 in the morning and meet him next after ten in the night, when she returned from work. For days, he would not see his father because of the double shift. That was when he was haunted by a dream, which does not visit one when asleep, but which keeps one awake.

When he joined the school’s futsal team, he became one of the 3 million boys and girls in Argentina that play ball with the feet. A third of those 3 million dream of becoming a professional footballer. Even before his twelfth spring, Damien was one of that million. At 16 when he joined Club Atlético Independiente, he became one of the fortunate 1% of the 1 million who make it to the Primera División, the major soccer league in Argentina. Fourteen years later when Lionel Scaloni announced, to the surprise of no one, that Damian would be part of the Qatar sojourn, he became one of the 26 out of 1% of 1 million who make it to the most fascinating sporting event on earth – the FIFA World Cup. I hope the numbers have set a context to the dreams, the aspirations, the heartbreaks that Scaloni carried on his shoulder when he was made the NT coach of Argentina in 2018 just after the humiliation in the Russian edition of the tournament.

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By 1867, there was a large British community in Buenos Aires. Most of them had established themselves coming from the United Kingdom as managers and workers of the British-owned railway companies that operated in Argentina.?Two English immigrants, Thomas and James Hogg, kicked off football in Argentina in an otherwise uneventful June afternoon that year. The teams could gather only eight players each as each was unable to find three more. The teams were distinguished by the colour of their caps rather than their shirts. Football has gone through many revolutionary changes since then. So did the passion that June 1867 ignited in the thousand odd people who attended the first game in Palermo. The fact that a crowd of 70,000 plus attended the Superclásico between River Plate and Boca Juniors on 20th March 2022 personifies the scale of that change.

The nation that taught them their football lifted the cup twelve years before the Argentines did. However, both their wins happened when they hosted the cup and under controversial circumstances. The ’66 Final saw England's Geoff Hurst being allowed a goal though his shot clearly hit off the crossbar, ricochet down onto the goal line and went out. In ’78 Argentina had to beat Peru by at least four goals to get into the final over arch nemesis Brazil. Peru's keeper Ramón Quiroga (who coincidentally was born in Argentina) consumed two more than needed. The victory of Argentina in ’86 was not free from controversies either because of the famous ‘Hand of God’ goal from the legendary Diego Armando Maradona. Ironically the goal came against England. Then came a match in the edition of 1990, where Argentina met Brazil in the Round of 16. One split second of magic from Maradona knocked Brazil out of the competition. But the match was so overwhelmingly dominated by The Selecao that many Argentines believed till 11th July 2021 that the country exhausted all their luck that day. The loss to Germany in the finals of 1990 and 2014 did not help ease that belief and the heartbreaks in editions between 1990 and 2014 were attributed to a certain virgin of Copacabana. Let me come back to that story in a short while.

So, when Lionel Scaloni took over the team as their caretaker manager in 2018, Argentina and their supporters worldwide were yet to recuperate from the shock of 2014 final followed by losses in two successive Copa America finals and almost a déjà vu of World Cup 2002 in Moscow. I am not laying it on thick when I say “worldwide”. If you add up the number of football fanatics just in Dhaka, Kolkata and Cochi, who are ready for self-defenestration when Argentina NT loses, it would be more than the number of people living in Argentina. The world order in football had also changed by 2018. The one and only Lionel Messi had hit the sack as far as national duties were concerned, Christiano Ronaldo had been drawing more crowd than the defenders, Iniesta had retired from feeding into Messi, Neymar was gone from Camp Nou to Parc des Princes, sentiments around The European Super League (ESL) were dividing football Europe and football South America had become the butt of jokes, not having touched the trophy since 2002.

The quaint Russian town of Bronnitsy was the scene of one of the tensest moments the Argentina team experienced during the 2018 World Cup when Lionel Messi stood up to the then-coach Jorge Sampaoli and yelled: “We don’t get what you’re saying. We no longer trust you. We want to have an opinion.” Sampaoli had inherited an ageing squad under a scandal-hit soccer federation and never looked like putting his stamp on a side that was inconsistent for most of his tenure. The AFA bid adieu to the 58-year-old Sampaoli and his assistants. The decision meant that Argentina, world champions in 1978 and 1986, were looking for their fourth coach in four years. Such a chaos was hardly surprising for any and showed that AFA was still in a state of complete disarray that started in 2016, when it had been accused of financial mismanagement of match broadcasting funds and fraudulent administration.

When Sampaoli was selected as a coach, AFA was headed by a Normalization Committee comprising representation from FIFA and Conmebol. Scaloni was fortunate to have a more credible Claudio Tapia as the President of AFA who started his tenure with a matured goal of increasing influence of AFA within world football's governing body and Conmebol. So, the Argentine order in football had also changed by 2018. Tides were turning but far from having fully turned.

Scaloni was a novice in being a head coach, but he was not new to coaching. He had been part of Jorge SamPaoli’s coaching staff at Sevilla FC as well as with the La Albiceleste. Sadly, he was not new to heartbreaks at the most coveted cup either. He had been part of the national team, which took part in the 2006 edition of the World Cup. The side played some of the most attractive football in the competition, highlighted by the now-famous 26-pass goal against Serbia and Montenegro and Maxi Rodriguez's wonder strike against the Mexicans. The quarter final against Germany was a tight affair, with Argentina taking the lead thanks to a Roberto Ayala header just after half-time. Then came some substitutions which remain inexplicable till date to many. Argentina crashed out in the penalty shoot-out. Scaloni appeared in only one match in the whole tournament, which Argentina won against Mexico. But why would AFA select an inexperienced one for such a role, which gets constantly scrutinized under the microscope of football pundits? After paying the severance to Sampaoli, AFA could afford a Scaloni and not the illustrious likes of Pochettino, Simeone or Gallardo.

Rise of Scaloni to the helm can remind one of the legendary Darwin E. Smith becoming the CEO of Kimberly-Clark, a stodgy old paper company whose stock had fallen 36 percent behind the general market over the previous twenty years. In fact, a director pulled Darwin Smith, the mild-mannered in-house lawyer, aside and reminded him that he lacked some of the qualifications for the position. In a similar fashion, Argentine press minced no words to tell Claudio Tapia that he had made a wrong choice. One of the legends of modern football commented in an inebriated tone during a press conference that, ‘He can go, but to the motorcycle World Cup, not the soccer one…. Good lad but can’t even direct traffic.’ If the legend were alive on 18th December 2022, he would have been the happiest to eat his words, perhaps as literally as did the British historian David Frith after India’s triumph at the 1983 cricket World Cup.

Darwin Smith appeared somehow meek or soft, which was his in-born fa?ade and people who fell for it were terribly mistaken. His awkward shyness and lack of pretence was coupled with a fierce, even stoic, resolve toward life. Scaloni was no different. Below his calm and post-match stoicism, he was planning to build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. In retirement, Smith reflected on his exceptional performance, saying simply, "I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job." In World Cup victory, Scaloni said, ““The criticism seemed normal to me when I took the job, and it still seems that way today.” Does this mean leaders like Darwin Smith or Scaloni do not have any ego? They do. But they channel their ego into the larger goal of building a great company or national team. They are incredibly ambitious. But their ambition is first and foremost for the “us” and not the “me”.

In several working sessions I have heard the management gurus say great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. But Scaloni decided to walk the “First Who … Then What” path. First, he got the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats—and then he figured out where to drive it. The old adage "People are your most important asset" turns out to be wrong. People are not your most important asset. The right people are.

Scaloni formed a coaching staff bringing in his former teammates Aimar, Roberto Ayala and Walter Samuel. They all had two things in common. Humility and hunger to succeed. Like General Hernan Costes who burned his ships upon landing, leaving only one option for his warriors (succeed or die), Scaloni did away with almost the entire set of star players who appeared in Moscow. Yes, he burned his warships Lionel Messi, Di Maria and Kun Aguero to start with. Over several friendlies and a comme ci comme ?a performance at Copa America 2019, he finally settled on a set of players who would be in the starting XI. Rest of the positions were up for grab based on performance.

The team’s dismal and, to some extent, confused display is his first few friendlies, invited many didn’t-I-say-so comments. Fans exploded on Twitter. Some wrote, “Our coach is a confirmed idiot.”. Another wrote, “Our team is so bad it's not even funny.” However, one of them unwittingly became a Nostradamus when he wrote, “I?really?want to keep trusting Scaloni and his development process (if you can even call it that) … ” Yes, Scaloni was following his own process, subtly creating his own bus and with his own people.

The Argentine passion for football wombed many a lore like the one around the Virgin of Copacabana. Carlos Bilardo’s 1986 World Cup squad, training at high altitude in Argentina’s northwest for the Mexico finals, were reported then to have made a promise to the Virgin of Copacabana to return if they won the title - but they never went back till 2011. The lore that the NT was jinxed was born out of this broken promise to the divine. Like a great CEO, Scaloni knew the importance of stories. So, behind the dull display and seemingly whimsical team compositions in the first few friendlies, which included the one goal heartbreak against Brazil, he was building his own concept out of chaos and creating a team that would rally around that story. If you don’t believe in my story, the door of the bus is open for you to get down. Period.

He knew that stories like ‘We must win the cup’, ‘Let’s do it’ were well past the shelf-life. So, his new story was around curiosity. What made 2014 so hard — unsatisfied curiosity — how does it feel if the Messiah of la albiceleste retires without knowing how does it feel to touch the Coupe du Monde? The question reminded Argentines of the heart wrenching slow-mo video of a Messi walking past the cup to receive his prize for being a forgotten second to Germany. In a land of apotheosis of Diego Maradona, the story worked, and Messi returned to the NT because he was won over with the project of Scaloni. It was then that people realized the real reason why Tapia selected Scaloni. Scaloni and Messi were friends, who shared the heartbreak of 2006.

It would be interesting to see, if Scaloni accepts a second go at the cup, what new concept he would make his team rally around. May be curiosity again – how does it feel to do what our archnemesis did for the last time a team did in 1962?

However, many found nothing fresh and startling in Scaloni’s managerial model of "genius with a thousand helpers". They found it risky too. What if the genius fails? What happens when the genius departs? They got their answers when his side drew level against the mighty Germany without the Messiah. The same Messi-less feat was repeated when six of his team scored against a strong Ecuadorian side. In Qatar, too, when a subdued Messi failed against Poland in a do-or-die match, MacAllister and Alvarez got the team over the line. Barring these few aberrations, the genius did not fail and match after match, we have seen how the entire team barged in on the opponent whenever an ugly tackle was fired on their messiah.

Scaloni also kept his goal simple too. When he said that even the strongest teams would find it difficult to beat his team, the skeptics considered the goal as unambitious at best because, since 1994-95, the governing body of football has been rewarding the winning team two points more than a team that drew. Footballing world never runs short of coaches who talk taller than where their teams end up in a league table. But Scaloni’s words turned out to be such a well-kept promise when Argentina remained unbeaten in thirty-five matches till the Al-Saqour pulled out a surprise in their WC opening game.

Scaloni must have heard about the Greek parable of the hedgehog and the fox. The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. Day in and day out, the fox circles around the hedgehog's den, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. Fast, sleek, beautiful, fleet of foot, and crafty—the fox looks like the sure winner. When the hedgehog crosses its way, the fox leaps out, bounding across the ground, lightning fast. "Here we go again. Will he ever learn?" Rolling up into a perfect little ball, the hedgehog becomes a sphere of sharp spikes, pointing outward in all directions. If the fox makes the jump, he is stung. Most of his players did not play together during their club duties. That was not a problem unique to any NT head coach. But he had a few unique problems. Most of his players were very young, new to the NT and many did not even play for the haloed clubs. So, being the hedgehog made perfect sense.

When Damián Emiliano Martínez Romero stood under the crossbar to face Kingsley Coman on 18th December 2018 he was the end-product of all the strategic work that Scaloni did as the team manager. Damian had the courage and ability to be on Scaloni’s bus. He had already embraced what Scaloni instilled in the team psychology -- the Stockdale Paradox: You must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, AND at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. Damian was under pressure. But the team had been under bigger pressure when they were left hanging on the edge by Saudi Arabia. Every time the team was on the edge, the strength of the group came forth. Lisandro Martinez had said: “In defeat things that you didn’t see in victory come back into the light,” Nicolás Tagliafico had insisted: “If you don’t suffer, it doesn’t count.” Scaloni had assured the team, “The sun will come up tomorrow”. Damian also had complete faith on how Scaloni had prepared him to face Coman. In fact, the whole team echoed what Rodrigo De Paul said about Scaloni, "He is very detailed and, because of how he prepares matches and tactical work, everything ends up happening. If it's 10 in the morning and he says, 'good night', then it's night for us." As the fox took the shot, the hedgehog dived to his right.

After the final, De Paul revealed that before the final he had written to Messi on a piece of paper: ‘Today, November 20, I promise you that we will be champions.’ He feels that piece of paper must still be there in the folder in the room. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win – Sun Tzu wrote in his “Sūnz? Bīngfǎ”. The first eighty minutes of the final showed La Scaloneta had already won before going into the match. But the quintessential uncertainty that makes tickets sell in football ultimately made the hedgehog Emi fly like a fairy to his right and stop the fox Coman from hitting the net. It was the flight of the Phoenix too. Argentina rose from the ashes of 2018.

Reference: Photographs taken from the Internet; 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins; Mundo Albeceleste website; Goal website; Fifa website; AFA website; Darwin E. Smith: Level 5 Leadership article