Argentina’s head coach on bringing Lionel Messi back into the fold – and the pain of losing an FA Cup final with West Ham
‘The sun will come up tomorrow,” Lionel Scaloni says. The Argentina manager is talking about the “terrible burden of responsibility” he carried as a player, the weight he tries to free his footballers from now, when a moment comes to his mind. It happened in 2006, and you may remember it. He certainly does, the regret remaining even though it might have been the best mistake he ever made. Not destiny exactly and he couldn’t have known it then, but one of those events that somehow shape things, the ball as butterfly effect.
Seconds remained in the FA Cup final with West Ham on the verge of winning their first trophy in 26 years, only the fourth in their history, when it fell to Steven Gerrard and, Scaloni says, “the world came crashing down on me”. Liverpool’s captain hit an absurd shot and everything shifted. “I lost an FA Cup, it was partly my fault because I didn’t clear well, and life changed,” he recalls. “West Ham don’t want to sign me, I return to Spain. I wouldn’t have met my wife or had my kids.”
