If he decides to leave River Plate (ARG) later this year, Marcelo Gallardo, 45, will be the most coveted South American coach in world football. After winning the title he lacked at the club, the Professional League of Argentina, he left open the possibility of changing sides after seven years in charge of the team.
“I’m ending my contract and it’s the first time I’ve been in this situation. I’ve given everything to the club until today and here I have to have maximum energy. I think I deserve the possibility of rethinking because it takes a lot of energy,” he said after the 4-0 rout over Racing (ARG) last Thursday (25), a victory that sealed the national achievement.
Gallardo has options at the table. It is the Uruguayan team’s priority for the final rounds of the qualifiers. The country’s football association fired Óscar Tabárez after a string of poor results. In the indicated offer, Gallardo could even choose whether he wants to do a short work (until the 2022 World Cup) or a long-term one (with the end of the cycle in 2026).
The coach has also been quoted at Barcelona and other Spanish clubs. Every time he was asked about the subject, he changed the subject. He did the same with the Uruguayan team. The press in the neighboring country unearthed his old statements in which he said that, in the future, the ideal job would be one with short deadlines, like the World Cup.
It’s a tournament you have a score to settle with. As a midfielder, he participated twice with Argentina. In 1998, in France, they fell in the quarter-finals against the Netherlands. Four years later, at the World Cup in Korea and Japan, the team led by Marcelo Bielsa did not make it past the group stage.
Paying off debts with the past is what River Plate did. When he was hired to head the team in 2014, the club hadn’t won an international title for 17 years. In his first season, he took the Copa Sudamericana. In seven years of work, 13 trophies were obtained, including the Argentine league.
With his name on the line to take over the Uruguayan national team, Gallardo threatens to leave River Plate shortly before the inauguration of his statue in front of the Monumental de Nuñez stadium, in honor of being considered one of the greatest names in the association’s history.
He was six times national champion for the club, as a player. He got over that as a coach. Mainly for having buried the nickname “chickens”, given by rivals for the folklore fame of the team of losing in decisive moments in continental competitions. Especially in the Copa Libertadores.
When Gallardo arrived to coach, River had two tournament titles. The last one, in 1996, with him in midfield. Boca Juniors (ARG), biggest rival, won seven times.
The club won the Libertadores twice more, in 2015 and 2018, under the command of Muñeco (the nickname he received when he started playing football, for having a head resembling a doll’s). In the latter, he won the greatest victory in his history. Defeated, in the decision, in Madrid, Boca.
Your list of achievements could be even bigger. With Gallardo, River became one of the greatest South American forces. It was two minutes away from being continental champion also in 2019, but it took Flamengo’s turnaround, in Lima.
In the semifinals of the Libertadores 2020, they almost had a historic comeback on Palmeiras. They lost at home by 3-0 in the first leg and won at Allianz Parque, on the return, by 2-0. They had a goal and a penalty canceled by the VAR in São Paulo.
As soon as the game was over, Abel Ferreira ran towards the Argentine and hugged him. Gallardo looked uncomfortable.
“I said I was going to win the competition and I would dedicate it to him. And he told me to win. If I am a coach today, I also owe Gallardo,” said the champion from Palmeira in 2020 and finalist again in 2021.
Titles are a fundamental part of Muñeco’s fame, but that’s not all. Methodical, obsessed and adept at an attacking game, with a touch of the ball and that pleases the fans, he has rebuilt the River squad again and again in these seven years. He looked for players in the youth categories and found others who weren’t as prominent elsewhere.
The latest revelation is striker Julián Álvarez, already named to the national team and the best player in the local league.
“People think that everything might be fine, that they can relax and live calmly. I don’t feel that way. I live things very intensely and I don’t relax,” explains Gallardo.
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