They Used To Call Me The Kicking Machine Yes , Really!

Argentina vs England at France 98, Di Canio’s infamous shove, Wenger’s revolution, the rise of Simeone... like a fighty, footballing Forrest Gump, Nelson Vivas has been history’s witness

- Martin Mazur

Some people just end up being in the right place at the right time. “My life in football has been full of many very unlikely moments – I’m just about getting used to it now,” chuckles Nelson Vivas a day after being named Argentina’s manager of the year in his debut season at Estudiantes. “The nicest thing about football is that you never know what will happen next – even the most unexpected things can take place.”

That’s certainly been the way of it throughout a career full of some fantastic tales – and that’s before you get to him leading his current club to the top of the league, a spot in the Copa Libertadores and an epic 21-match unbeaten run, all with a previously unfancied squad.

Long before Gilberto Silva or Alexis Sanchez, Vivas became the first ever South American player to put pen to paper at Arsenal, not that he’s particularly well remembered in north London.

Still, he won 39 caps for Argentina and was part of the squad that travelled to the 1998 World Cup, and played the full 120 minutes of his country’s penalty shootout victory over England.

He played with everyone from Tony Adams to Diego Maradona, via Gabriel Batistuta, Dennis Bergkamp and the Brazilian Ronaldo.

Vivas is also among the very few men to have played for both Boca Juniors and River Plate, and has been managed by Manuel Pellegrini, Arsene Wenger, Hector Cuper and Daniel Passarella,not to mention Argentina’s three most renowned bosses of the modern era: Cesar Menotti, Carlos Bilardo and Marcelo Bielsa. He later acted as Diego Simeone’s right-hand man at Estudiantes, River and San Lorenzo, coaching the likes of Juan Veron and Radamel Falcao.