At this point in my life, I believe that in Argentina there are two enigmas that are impossible to solve: one is how to lower inflation; the other, what has to happen for River to be charged a penalty against it. Obviously, with a rude hand in the area, like that of González Pires against Fluminense the other day, it is not enough. I suppose there should be a fracture, a blackout or an eye poke for the referee and the bar (oh, the drinks…) to get paid. I don’t know. I know, on the other hand, that it is better not to mess with enigmas. So let’s change the subject, although staying in that game. In the outfits of the technicians. While Martín Demichelis was dressed in an elegant suit and tie, perfect, dapper, Apollonian; Fernando Diniz, DT of the Flu, walked from here to there with joggineta and a misaligned shirt with the colors of the club. Let me say that I support the cause of Diniz, who has the maximum expression of him in Bielsa. I don’t think that decision, to dress like that, is casual. I think there are at least two paths hidden there that they do not want to take. Paths that usually run parallel go together. On the one hand, the aesthetic rejection of the figure of the coach-manager, who embodies Pep Guardiola like no other, with his look of a progressive manager, one of those who seem kind, sensitive, cool, but if they have to give it to you, they give it to you. they give like any garca (remember, to give just one example, the progressive Jorge Valdano, marketing manager for the galacticos and Real Madrid businesses). He is the coach turned into a businessman, an adviser in the Real Estate of the purchases and sales of merchandise called football players, in strategic investment plans, trusts, sponsors and other calamities.
On the other hand, Diniz’s style (whom, it goes without saying, I had seen only once on TV, in the first leg against River in Rio de Janeiro, I have no other reference) also implies running away from the assigned roles to the managers for the media show. Of course, this is not a law: Bielsa, with his style of Sunday neighbor washing cars on the sidewalk of Rosario, is deeply in the media: if he walks like a madman, if he sits on an ice cream maker, if he overturns a coffee… his oversight is a central part of the show. But he is an isolated example. Managers like Diniz, with his total lack of glamor, do not fit the role assigned to a coach in football. A fat like this conveys the idea that he knows nothing about numbers, finances, purchase and resale value, managing non-durable goods, also called soccer players.
Watching Diniz, you know what? For a second, the same second in which the referee acted as a fool not to take the penalty against River, I missed technicians like Coco Basile, passing magic talcum powder with Panadero Díaz, Bilardo almost tying and untying his tie. until drowning, anomalous characters in a time that is no longer theirs.