Lionel Scaloni has spent most of his managerial career being underestimated. When he was handed Argentina in 2018, Diego Maradona scoffed: “Leo cannot even manage traffic on the road — how can you give him the national team?”
Eight years later, Scaloni’s record speaks for itself. Four major trophies. 75 wins, 18 draws and only nine losses recorded in a little over 100 matches. Five consecutive semi-finals at major tournaments. And a chance to become the first coach since Brazil’s Aymore Moreira in 1962 to win back-to-back World Cups.
Yet he remains football’s most unassuming dynast.
“I was never one of the big players,” he once reflected. “I was a support player. I was a nice guy”, the 48-year-old said.
The man who cried before the final
Before the 2022 World Cup final, Scaloni tried to deliver the most important team talk of his career. He couldn’t get the words out. He choked up and started to cry.
He turned to his assistant coach Pablo Aimar. Aimar was also crying. He asked technical analyst Walter Samuel to continue — Samuel shook his head. Argentina’s players still tease Scaloni about it. They call him the Llorona (the crybaby).
Messi confirmed it.
“When he’s about to speak, he says, ‘I can’t, I can’t’. Then he asks Pablo to continue, and Pablo replies, ‘Me neither, me neither’,” the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner recalled.
Scaloni doesn’t hide his emotions. The tears came again when Messi scored his hat-trick against Algeria.
“I can’t look up, I’m sorry,” he said after Argentina’s comeback win over Egypt. “I’m very, very emotional. What a group of players, man! I have to go.”
That vulnerability has become his superpower.
“Making the person better to make the game better,” Rodrigo De Paul observed. Leandro Paredes put it simply: “We work so that Messi’s last game never arrives.”
Favoured or fighting?
The team Scaloni has built has become the most controversial at this World Cup.
Argentina have survived three knockout games by the skin of their teeth. They needed extra time to overcome Cape Verde, recovered from two goals down with 11 minutes left to beat Egypt and required extra time again to see off Switzerland in the quarter-finals.
The wins have been thrilling. But they have also been accompanied by a growing chorus of complaints.
Egypt’s coach said his side had been “treated unfairly” after a goal was disallowed following a VAR review. Then came the Switzerland quarter-final. Breel Embolo was controversially shown a second yellow card for simulation in the 72nd minute.
Switzerland coach Murat Yakin called the rule “unacceptable” and said it “destroyed our game”.
Scaloni, however, has refused to engage with the conspiracy theories. He has dismissed the idea of favouritism, pointing out that such claims are nothing new for Argentina.
“In 1986, they also said we were favoured,” he said. “It doesn’t come from now. Since I have a memory, Argentina always animates the tournament and, somehow, it is used to show the players that there are people who don’t want Argentina to win.”
He has also defended the VAR process.
“With VAR, it’s very difficult for them to help you. There is no double interpretation; everything is very clear. On the play [against Egypt], they stepped on Lisandro Martinez’s foot. It’s a stamp, light, but it’s a foul. There is no other reading.”
What has been overlooked in the debate over refereeing is Scaloni’s tactical adjustments. Against Egypt, trailing 2-0 with 11 minutes left, he made changes that shifted the game’s momentum.
Cristian Romero’s 79th-minute header came from a set-piece variation. Messi’s equaliser followed a period of sustained pressure. Against Switzerland, after the red card, Argentina struggled to break down a stubborn defence before Julian Alvarez’s long-range strike in extra time broke the deadlock.
The tactical battle ahead
Argentina have looked vulnerable at the back in the knockout rounds. Three comparatively weaker opponents have all scored against them, and England will have taken note.
The defensive process has been stronger than the outcomes — Argentina allowed one of the lowest rates of expected goals in the tournament — but the goals conceded have been real.
Wayne Rooney has pointed to one specific weakness. Messi’s defensive contribution.
“He can be a weakness defensively for Argentina,” Rooney told BBC Sport. “He doesn’t run back, but he has big moments”.
England are expected to try to exploit the spaces Messi leaves behind, pushing runners forward on his side.
The midfield battle is also central.
Robbie Fowler, the former England striker, told the ZEE5 panel: “Whichever side wins the midfield battle without sacrificing its defensive structure will control the game.”
Jude Bellingham and Harry Kane have scored 12 of England’s 13 goals at this World Cup. How Argentina contain them will define Scaloni’s tactical approach.
Argentina’s recent wins have been built on resilience rather than control and Scaloni has acknowledged this.
“Sometimes during a game, tactics and strategies are forgotten,” he said. “Football is also about heart, gut instinct and never giving up.”
The two Leos
Argentina have two Leos — and that is their strength. The genius on the pitch and the coach who has built an ecosystem for him to thrive. Scaloni’s greatest achievement, however, is how he has managed the weight of Messi without being consumed by it.
Argentine journalist Pablo Nicolas put it well when he said, “Scaloni’s greatness is not in inventing a new way to use Messi. It is in inventing a way not to waste him.”
Under Scaloni, Argentina are not a team playing for Messi — they are a team playing with Messi. That distinction has transformed the group, creating a family atmosphere built on barbecue sessions, shared mates and emotional honesty.
“We shortened the training session so we can go and eat an asado,” Scaloni revealed. “We place a lot of value on it,” he said.
The legacy
Scaloni’s record is already the stuff of legend. But a second consecutive World Cup would remove all debate. He would become the undisputed greatest manager in Argentine football history.
“This is nothing more than a football match,” Scaloni said ahead of the England semi-final on Wednesday. He has said it so often that it has become his mantra.
But he knows the truth. Match by match, the former defender who was once seated among more celebrated coaches has grown larger than them all.
When his side does something that even surprises him, Scaloni gets overwhelmed. It was there after the 2022 final. It was there again after the Egypt comeback. He didn’t move. Just stood there, hands over his face, as if the weight of it all had finally found him.
His vulnerable side has become his strength. In a football culture often defined by machismo, Scaloni has built a team on the opposite foundation: emotional intelligence over tactical rigidity, spirit over strategy.
Header image: Lionel Scaloni, Head Coach of Argentina, attends a press conference one day ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Semi Final match at Atlanta Stadium on July 14, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. — AFP