Mourning in the world of football: César Luis Menotti has died

One of the greats of football who took Argentina to the top of world football is leaving.

The coach who led Argentina to become world champions in 1978 and who later coached, among other teams, Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid, died on Sunday 5 May at the age of 85.

Known for his great taste for playing delicious, flashy football, designed to entertain the spectator, he even created his own philosophy, Menottism, in contrast to the billardism of his enemy Carlos Salvador Bilardo, who also led Argentina to victory a World Cup, in Mexico in 1986.

The Argentine Football Federation announced the passing of the former Albiceleste coach via social media. Menotti had not been in good health since August last year, when he fell ill at home.

“El Flaco”

Cesar Luis Menotti, as can be understood from his surname, was part of a family that had Italian origins, from Ancona as he once said, and after his career as a footballer between Rosario Central, Racing, Boca Juniors and in Brazil with Santos, he began coaching in the early 1970s, leading the Huracan to a historic title.

So in 1974 he was entrusted with the leadership of the national team with which four years later he won, at home, the first World Cup in the history of the Albiceleste. All this, before the start of the tournament, amidst the controversy over the failure to call up the very young (17 years old) but already phenomenal Diego Armando Maradona.

“He’s too young“, said Menotti of Diego, with whom he won the under-20 World Cup the following year, in 1979, while he remained at the helm of the senior national team until 1982. Then various experiences at club level, also in Europe: Barcelona, Atletico Madrid and, in 1997, Sampdoria in Italy, who however sacked him after just 8 days.

However, “El Flaco”, a nickname that was almost a trademark for him, was also appreciated outside the field, when in the midst of the dictatorship he signed the request asking for the publication of the names and whereabouts of the “desaparecidos”. .

Together with him, the only football man to sign, intellectuals and personalities such as Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Oscar Alende, Raúl Alfonsín, Hermenegildo Sábat and Ernesto Sabato signed the appeal. That text aroused so much anger among the military that the generals called for the Menotti’s expulsion.

“He’s the coach of the national team, I can’t fire him“, the president of the football federation defended him Julio defended Grondona, who then, in private, reproached “El Flaco” for his decision: “no one knows Borges – he told him – , you, on the other hand, are Menotti“.