The former Parma, Lazio, Milan and Inter striker talks about himself: “I was joined by Lautaro, deadly, I’m a bit melancholy. I’d like to return to Serie A as a coach”
Being joined by Lautaro Martinez in the ranking of Argentina’s top scorers (35 goals) generated a double reaction in him: of happiness for the “Toro” who proves to be increasingly implacable and increasingly necessary to the Selección, and of melancholy, “because – explains Hernan Crespo – time passes, I’m over fifty, I have gray hair and, when I play matches with the boys I coach at San Paolo, I can’t do the things I used to do. But now I have other things to think about, I’m on the bench of a great Brazilian futebol club, San Paolo, and I dedicate my energies to this club to help it return to glory.”
Let’s start with Lautaro Martinez and his prolificacy. His opinion?
“He is a complete striker and he has demonstrated it in recent years at Inter and with Argentina. In the penalty area he is deadly, he sees the goal like few others. He knows how to play with the team, communicates with his teammates and attacks spaces. He is good at dribbling. What more can I say? Yes, I consider him a champion. When a center forward throws it in, there is little to add: he has done his duty.”
He became a true leader.
“Exactly and you can see it from how he plays. He has personality, opposing defenders fear him and double the marking. This means he has reached full maturity.”
Now let’s take a leap into the past: your relationship with the national team?
“Fantastic. Every time I scored I kissed the shirt, a gesture of love towards my country and towards my people. The first goal was against Ecuador, in Buenos Aires, a match valid for qualifying for the 1998 World Cup. We had a very strong national team. Apart from myself, there were Batistuta, Veron, Almeyda, Simeone, Zanetti, Sensini, Chamot, Ortega, Claudio Lopez. Coach Daniel Passarella, the man who launched me into great football at River Plate. But we were eliminated by the Netherlands in the quarter-finals and it was a terrible disappointment.”
It was his first World Cup. Then came those of 2002 and 2006.
“In 2002, in Japan and Korea, it was a disaster. We didn’t get past the first round. And in 2006 we were eliminated, again in the quarter-finals, by hosts Germany on penalties. Throughout my career I chased the World Cup: my generation was born with the myth of Maradona and the 1986 Cup, the Goal of the Century, and all that stuff. We dreamed of making the Argentinians relive those moments magical, but we didn’t succeed. It’s a regret that I carry inside me.”
While we’re on the subject: any other regrets?
“Istanbul 2005, Champions League final between Milan and Liverpool. After Maldini’s goal, I scored a brace, we ended the first half with a 3-0 lead and then the English came back and we lost on penalties. It’s not easy to digest a defeat after scoring a brace… For years I never wanted to see that match again. Only recently have I made peace with that cursed story. But let’s not insist too much, because otherwise my anger will come back.”
The strongest teammate you played with?
“I don’t choose only for technical qualities, but above all for moral ones. And I say Paolo Maldini. I was with him for a season at Milan and I understood how a captain should behave.”
Today she is a coach. Is it easier to be a player or sit on the bench?
“A player, in principle, thinks about himself and his well-being. A coach must think about a group of twenty-five or thirty people. In your opinion, what is the hardest job? I always give the example of a school teacher who has the responsibility of teaching an entire class. I feel like this when I direct a training session.”
His points of reference?
“For the profession of coach, I say three names. Ancelotti, Mourinho and Bielsa. Carlo, for me, was like a father when I arrived in Italy in 1996. I was twenty-one years old, I learned everything from him. Mou is an extraordinary motivator, I experienced it in my time at Chelsea. Nobody gets into the players’ heads like he does. And Bielsa is a visionary: he knows how to go beyond the present, he knows how to interpret football in modern way. I am inspired by them, but I know I will never reach their successes. But I also won something on the bench… In Argentina, Brazil, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates I achieved satisfaction and success.”
The team you were most attached to?
“Parma. They bought me when I was little more than a child and made me become a world-class centre-forward. And then in Parma I won a lot. It makes me laugh when I think that, when I auditioned for River Plate, I didn’t imagine becoming a footballer. I had gone there to accompany a friend and I found myself playing the match. Since I wasn’t too bad, they took me. I had the Van Basten poster in my room. Every now and then I television broadcast images of Sacchi’s Grande Milan and I was enchanted by the Dutchman’s gestures. I tried to imitate him during training, but how do you imitate a phenomenon like that? It’s impossible, there are no longer any center forwards of that level. Strong yes, even very strong. But Van Basten was from another planet.”
What would you like to do when you grow up?
“Coaching a European team, perhaps. Or rather: an Italian one. It would be the closing of the circle. Let’s not limit ourselves and wait, in the meantime I have to think about San Paolo”.
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