Scaloni's quiet revolution carries Argentina towards England showdown

DALLAS, July 13 : Lionel Scaloni barely registered among the coaching royalty gathered in Bilbao.

Brazil’s Tite drew the crowds to the International Football Summit. Fabio Capello, Unai Emery and Ernesto Valverde commanded attention. Scaloni, only months into one of world football’s most unforgiving jobs, looked like an afterthought.

Then lunch was served. Initially quiet at the table, the former Argentina fullback gradually relaxed into easy conversation, thawing the room with warmth and easy humour and drawing laughs from even the famously stern Capello.

Six years later, the understated coach from the small town of Pujato takes Argentina into a World Cup semi-final against England, one victory from a second successive final and a chance to lead Argentina to become the first team since 1962 to win back-to-back World Cup titles.

Back in February 2020 at the Bilbao summit, Scaloni was still best known as a former hardworking player who had built his career in Spain playing for Deportivo La Coruna and Racing Santander, with less memorable spells in England and Italy, before drifting into Argentina's national set-up after serving as Jorge Sampaoli's assistant at the chaotic 2018 World Cup.

Argentina's Round of 16 exit in Russia had pushed Lionel Messi away from the national team, exhausted by the old accusation that he could not reproduce his Barcelona brilliance in blue and white.

Scaloni was handed Argentina in no small part due to the fact that Mauricio Pochettino, Diego Simeone and others had declined the AFA's poisoned chalice.

Few then imagined Scaloni would go on to become one of the most successful figures in the country's football history.

DAY IN RIO

Aided throughout by former players Pablo Aimar and Walter Samuel, Scaloni