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After the Copa Libertadores owner Flamengo was annoyed under excruciating circumstances, the Racing Club now has Carlos Tevez and his Argentine champions in their sights.
The Avellaneda club started again as underdogs when they started their quarter-finals against Boca Juniors on Wednesday, although perhaps not as much as against their Brazilian opponents in the preliminary round, whom they defeated 1-1 on a penalty shoot-out draw.
The break into the last eight Libertadores is an independent achievement for the club, which can be attributed in particular to one man: the club legend and the outgoing technical secretary Diego Milito.
Milito was a two-time title winner in the Primera Division in 2001 and 2014 with La Academia as a player and returned to Racing in early 2018 in a new role alongside the newly appointed coach Eduardo Coudet.
The assignment of such positions, be it as technical secretary, sports director, football director or (for English-speaking ears) a rather confusing managerial position, is a common honor for club favorites and often means little more than a popular buffer between angry fans and president when the results get worse.
However, Milito has applied the same dedication, dedication and intelligence to his work that served him so well on the pitch for Racers, Genoa and Inter, changing the club both on and off the pitch.
The new secretary, who had the final say on all arrivals, departures, and coaching appointments as part of his responsibility, brought a team of scouts led by Javier Wainer to identify the best talent from across Argentina and the South America while investing in modern software and video technology to maximize the capabilities of every observer.
¡Del último Straf hasta el vestuario! ¡Puro delirio! Así fueron losfestjos de @RacingClub en el Maracaná pic. Twitter. com / LCOWThaldo
This professional approach is intended to ensure that Racing achieves the best possible return on every transfer. For a club that, while comfortable enough locally, but dwarfed by the two biggest teams in Argentina and especially the top teams in Brazil in terms of budget, this is vital.
Last year alone, Carlos Lema, a member of the scouting team, took part in no fewer than 75 youth games involving lower division teams to find gems that other clubs have overlooked.
« Sometimes a gesture is enough to tell if a child is good enough, » he told La Nacion. « If he did something to surprise you, maybe he can do other things as well. «
« We have to be creative, » Wainer told the New York Times. “We have to have a network that means that we can win players in front of bigger clubs because financially we can’t compete with River Plate and Boca Juniors. ”
The search starts at the bottom. In 2019 Racing organized five Copas Diego Milito; Tournaments with teenagers aged seven, eight and nine, mainly on the rich soccer field in the south of Buenos Aires.
More than 300 kids turned out and 12 joined the club at the youth level. 10 more tournaments were planned for 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic intervened.
The team is known for bringing up promising talent from the Tita Mattiussi complex, which was built and maintained by fans during one of the club’s lowest ebb in the late 1990s. Inter’s Lautaro Martinez and Udinese playmaker Rodrigo De Paul are alumni of a system that Milito, Lisandro Lopez, Maxi Moralez and Sergio Romero have honed.
A failure of not just the Racing Academy but all of Argentine football has been the tendency to focus on skillful attackers and midfielders, to the detriment of players in less glamorous positions.
Milito’s team, led by experienced youth coordinator Miguel Gomis, has identified this historical imbalance and tried to resolve it. It focuses on giving young goalkeepers and defenders the support and expertise they need to develop.
In fact, one of the first big sales of the Milito era was Juan Musso, who rose to the Udinese first team almost immediately after signing in July 2018 and is now knocking on the national team’s door.
And while Racing may have headed to Velez Sarsfield on Friday with several first teamers who had rested for the Boca game, the presence of three Tita alumni, all 20 years or younger, in the Academia- Defense a confirmation of the association’s work in this area and the philosophy behind it.
Many are in a hurry to refer to the work of the secretariat as a « European system », although this is not a phrase that is very popular in the club itself. After all, Milito’s group is made up of Argentines and there are many examples of poorly managed teams in Europe as there are efficient administrations on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
« European » has also been used as a bat by the ex-striker’s critics to beat him and his team both within racing and throughout Argentine football and the media as a whole.
Old habits die hard, and it is clear that implementing such an integral approach requires significant investment, persistence and, above all, patience – factors that are not always abundant in a country where short-term results are critical.
La Academia has benefited from the enviable experience that Milito and his entire team bring to the table. The secretary himself admits that one man in particular influenced his methodology.
« I’ve always tried to steal things from all the clubs I’ve been to, » he told Marca in 2019. “My example? I would say Monchi. I read his book and saw how he worked in Seville.
“You have to work hard. It’s a long process. Changing working models overnight is difficult. Things have been done right in Europe for years, South America has to take the good things on board while at the same time sticking to the interests of football. ”
Nothing brings success like success. In Milito’s first full season, and despite the Lautaro and Musso sales, Racing ran out of the 2018-19 Superleague champions to claim its first title in five years.
The following campaign wasn’t quite as eye-catching, but the team now led by Jorge Sampaoli’s former Argentina No.. 2 Sebastian Beccacece finished fourth and another berth at Libertadores in 2021 – only for the second time since the 1960s that they have qualified for the competition in consecutive seasons.
Despite this good track record, internal opposition to Milito’s project never let up and in November 2020 the conflict inflated, culminating in the secretary’s decision to resign at the end of the year.
« The motive is very simple: I do not share the club model and the ideas of the president [Victor Blanco], » he said in an open letter. “That may sound strong to some, but it is not. I have nothing personal against Victor, whom I respect and understand, who gives everything for the institution.
« I got involved three years ago to convince and to show another way: the professionalization of a key area like the sports department. I think it was a success. . . but obviously I wasn’t convinced. I feel like I haven’t been heard so I’m stepping back so [Blanco] can pursue his ideas. ”
While the disputes between Milito and certain directors were well known, the abrupt nature of his resignation surprised even some of those closest to him.
Right now, the future of his department is unclear – whether it will go on without him or be silently decommissioned by Blanco, who is expected to easily win Sunday’s presidential election despite fan outrage over the treatment of her idol.
An avid academy fanatic since childhood, Milito and all of his staff continue to do their job, scouring South America for the next player who could make the difference in Avellaneda.
And of course it’s about the Copa. The decisive game in the Bombonera is on 23. December just before Christmas.
El Principe’s influence since his return to Racing in 2018 has largely been seen in the background, with Milito holding back – as he usually did as a player off the field.
The Super League win and this current Libertadores run represent his greatest legacy as his club is consistently among the best in Argentina and South America.
That some of their rivals are also considering introducing their own equivalents of the system is also a sign of the effectiveness of the club’s work in this previously neglected area.
But if one moment could sum up what he has tried in difficult circumstances over the past three years, it would be a week at the Maracana.
Carlos Alcarez, 18 years old and fresh from Tita, and Fabricio Dominguez, 21, who switched from playmaker to right-back after arriving from Uruguay, both scored on penalties against Flamengo to defeat the aristocrats of Rio. two symbols for the objectives of the Secretariat, which provided indisputable proof of the importance of Milito working in the shadows.
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Racing Club de Avellaneda, Copa Libertadores, Boca Juniors, Sebastián Beccacece, Diego Milito, Carlos Tevez
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