Masters Of The Game

In a World Cup that has produced thrills aplenty, the traditional powers have been rattled, but coaches have risen to the occasion.

- Reuben Joe Joseph/kazan

For all of Diego Maradona’s heroics in Argentina’s 1986 World Cup win, it was coach Carlos Bilardo’s ‘anti-football’ that caught the attention of the analysts. Bilardo’s win-at-all-costs mentality did not go down too well with purists. He was superstitious and performed strange rituals before games. For instance, he always borrowed toothpaste from players on match days, did not allow the team to eat chicken and made them travel to the stadium in cabs—all because he thought it would bring them good luck. “There’s absolutely nothing unusual in what I do,” he said about his idiosyncrasies and tactics.

Over time, things have changed at the tournament. Though there have been instances of coaches ‘parking the bus’ to kill creativity at this World Cup, it has been largely the attack-minded ones who have succeeded. The only instance so far, where a coach has been blatantly accused of playing ‘anti-football’, was when Japanese fans booed their team for the pragmatic approach that coach Akira Nishino took to help them scrape past the group stage at the cost of the more entertaining Senegal. Nishino later admitted that he felt guilty for asking his players to sit back and defend, even though they were in a losing position against Poland. But, it was a logical approach, given that Japan would have been eliminated had they conceded one more goal.