Ricardo La Volpe tells what was his big mistake as coach of Boca Juniors: ‘When I arrived I was a little bean’

Ricardo LaVolpe was the guest this Wednesday of F90the cycle of ESPNand as expected he left a series of interesting definitions about modern football, the evolution of the sport and what he learned during his years as a coach, especially in Mexico there Argentina.

Among the issues on which he was most consulted is his time at the head of Boca Juniorsin 2006, when he succeeded Alfio Basil. At that time, the team led the Apertura and had been twice local football champions, in addition to winning the Recopa and the Copa Sudamericana, but the coconut He left to take over as coach of the Argentine national team.

The one chosen by the management xeneize was nothing less than Foxwhich was to happen after having played a big role in the Mexican team which, a few months before, had been eliminated from the Germany World Cup in the round of 16 for the Argentinain a duel unlocked thanks to Maxi Rodríguez’s goal in extra time.

“When I arrived in Boca, it was a small bean. I didn’t have the name for leading Boca. But how can you not take on this responsibility,” he explained to the surprise of the entire panel. It is that the Bigotón explained that he did not have enough perspective to take the lead of a locker room like that of the La Ribera group. “At Boca, I lacked connection with the players. We wanted to get into football tennis, and they waited for a player to come. I had arranged with Marino for his phone to ring and for him to leave in case of emergency, when I wanted to join them they grabbed the ball and said ‘No, we are waiting for the player'”.

The man who triumphed in Mexican football at the helm of clubs like Toluca and América, explained that in the locker room of the xeneize The footballers did not respect him and he failed to dialogue with them. “In Boca, I felt that they looked at me badly, some looked at me badly, but I was not going to fight, because in addition someone could shit on me. They talked downstairs and called me ‘Mexicanito’”. In this sense, he maintained that a large part was due to the fact that in Argentina the Mexican league is understood as a minor league: “Mexico is not a power, if it happens Guardiola in my place, everyone would have praised him. The players measure you”.

At the Ribera club, he took over in the seventh appointment at La Bombonera. Until then, the team had won all of its games, including a 7-1 victory over San Lorenzo, and were the best candidate to win the title and, therefore, the triple championship. But, already on his debut, he added a pale 0-0 against Godoy Cruz at La Bombonera.

“In Boca they said that I had changed the system. What I tell journalists is that I didn’t have (Federico) Insúa. He was gone and no one said so. Everyone said that La Volpe had changed Basile’s system, that La Volpe must be a moron… that it’s not me, it must be a brother of mine that I had to hide. What people haven’t understood is that. I went there and said to Marino ‘Are you enganche?’ ‘No’. Nery Cardozo? Neither Gago nor Ledesma. I didn’t have a hitch and I went to a 4-4-2,” he explained.

In the championship they reached the last two dates with the need to add a point to be champions, but they lost as visitors to Belgrano and at home to Lanús. “On Boca’s pitch you can’t lose, these fans, how it moves. You can’t lose,” he said, acknowledging that before playing the final against Estudiantes, he knew he was going to lose: “He was already dead.

In the face of such scrutiny, he was clear in his final conclusion: “I was missing someone who knew the Boca dressing room in my coaching staff.”

The most striking phrases of La Volpe

“Before, there was a society that forced you to go to school. My father was middle class, he had no luxuries, but I went to a school for priests. It was something the culture, of the Spaniards and the Italians, to grow up. And today you see an Argentina without that education. The first thing to learn is not to be corrupt and to help people.

“The coupling is obsolete and it must be said. Why do you think that in Germany, England or Bayern Munich that the best players buy, they don’t have a deposit?

“Before the player had more time to play, today the physical problem in the mark has increased a lot.”

“I liked Gallardo’s River more than Demichelis’s.”

“Today, we have to work. In our time, we worked 70% defensively and today that has changed. Before Banfield played the same as Boca, and in an analysis that I am doing now, I understand why there were five big ones. We played evenly.”

“Riquelme only played against five”.

“Oscar Romero doesn’t have the dynamics to be 10 years old. You also have to defend.”

“This Boca lacks work. Because today we have to work a lot at the start”.

“Game systems are created by players. The players are the most important thing to have a good team and the coach must be smart to choose the scheme”.

“Why were the hairy people of Argentina and France like this? Griezmann broke to rush the start, then Enzo, De Paul and Mac Allister stayed and Deschamps stayed with Rabiot and Tchuameni. Two midfielders (from France) and Argentina had three. It was a dance for four goals.

“The player doesn’t have a gun in his head so he doesn’t take long and break lines from above.”

“I want revenge on Argentina, because when I came they told me you can’t play away. Going out to play was dynamite, it was like a bomb”.

“30% of a team is the coach, 70% is the players. At Boca it was the other way around because it was all my fault.”

“A coach has to convince the player, otherwise you don’t exist. I have to be a psychologist for the players”.

“Guardiola arrives at a club and sets up the system he wants.”

“For me, from a footballing point of view, this Boca (the one he managed) played well.”

“Bielsa had problems with Chilavert at Vélez, but he ended up convincing them and with his system he emerged champion”.

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