Set the footballing world alight
César Menotti
Football manager BORN OCTOBER 22, 1938 – DIED MAY 5, 2024, AGED 85
CHAIN- smoking World Cup winning coach César Menotti was a long-haired maverick who delivered football’s greatest prize to troubled host nation Argentina as the ticker tape rained down from the stands.
In the lead up to the 1978 tournament, he faced thunderous criticism in Argentina for leaving a young Diego Maradona out of the squad. Menotti insisted the 17-year-old was too young to cope with the pressure.
Argentina ran out 3-1 winners over the Netherlands in the final of a tournament dogged by controversy and allegations of match-fixing by the military government, as the host nation benefited from a raft of favourable refereeing decisions to lift the trophy for the first time.
In a nomadic coaching career that spanned decades, “the thin one” led high-profile clubs including Barcelona and Atletico Madrid in Spain, Huracán, Boca Juniors, Independiente, and River Plate in Argentina and Italy’s Sampdoria. He also led the Mexico national side.
César Luis Menotti was born in Rosario, Argentina, the only child of Antonio and Olga. He made his breakthrough as a striker for Rosario Central in 1960, moved to Racing in 1964 and Boca a year later where he won the title in 1965. He moved to New York Generals in the North American Soccer League in 1967 and then became a team-mate of Pelé at Santos in Brazil.
Menotti was inspired to coach after travelling to Mexico to see his friend Pelé and Brazil take football to a new level when they stormed to the 1970World Cup.
He won his first title with Huracán in 1973 and a year later became Argentina’s head coach. A year after the World Cup win he led a Maradona-inspired under-20 side to the World Youth Championship.
Menotti moved to Barcelona in 1983, where he was reunited with Maradona and won three trophies, but his final game was marred by the mass brawl at the end of the 1984 Copa del Rey final in Madrid.
He spent the next two decades at a host of South America’s top clubs and ended his career as the director of Argentina’s national teams.
Menotti died after spending a month in hospital with anaemia.