Former Argentine footballers Pablo Aimar and Lionel Scaloni have been tasked with taking the national team forward together. The interim managers are replacing Jorge Sampaoli who was sacked following a disastrous FIFA World Cup campaign.
The Argentina Football Association’s President Claudio Tapia communicated this decision after meeting the executive committee. The interim managers’ first assignment will be in September when they travel to USA to play a couple of friendly internationals.
"The next three FIFA friendly matches will be coached by (Lionel) Scaloni and (Pablo) Aimar. We will take this semester to choose and decide who is going to lead in the future," Tapia said.
Scaloni, 40, and Aimar, 38, both played for the Albiceleste for extended periods and subsequently made the transition to coaching in the national team set-up. Aimar is the coach of the U-17 team and Scaloni was part of Sampaoli's staff.
Scaloni and Aimar, though will have to wait for Lionel Messi to make up his mind about his future with the national team, before they can pick the team for the games against Guatemala (Sept 7) and Colombia (Sept 11). After those two friendlies, Argentina will take on arch-rivals Brazil in October.
Argentina almost missed out on playing at the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and needed a Messi masterclass against Ecuador to come through. At the World Cup, Argentina were almost knocked out at the group stages only to be saved by a late winner from Marcus Rojo against Nigeria. The former champions played France next and were beaten 4-3 by the eventual champions.
Speaking about Sampaoli, Tapia said: "When we called him, he was the best for us. I have no doubt that we haven't seen the Jorge Sampaoli we had seen at Chile and Sevilla.”
"Anyway to blame him is not right, football is football. Sometimes you get what you want and sometimes you don't. We all have our responsibilities. If we didn't get the results is because we all have failed."
The President of the AFA, Tapia also played down expectations from the national team in the near future due to the change of guard in the team.
"We must thank this generation that gave us everything, not only in the main tournaments but also during their youth years," Tapia said. "They won the last titles in the youth categories for us. But now is time to look ahead and we must start a new era.
"When you live all that we have lived, all that we went through, you rarely get a good result quickly in sport. Those who may be thinking or dreaming that we will win the next Copa America [in 2019], that's a little bit difficult. Even more if you take into account the generational renewal of the national team we must go through."
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