Ranking de entrenadores en el Mundial de Qatar
Morocco were the surprise package of the World Cup in Qatar. The whole world was delighted with the order and sacrifice of the Atlas Lions. For this, Morocco had a coach who started to prepare the team less than three months before the start of the World Cup.
The Moroccan federation sacked Vahid Halilhodzic, the coach who had managed to qualify. Regragui, whose parents are Moroccan, learned to play football in a Parisian suburb. There he met Rudi Garcia, with whom he started his football career and from whom he learned a lot. As a footballer he played for AC Ajaccio, Racing Santander, Dijon FCO and Grenoble.
Despite living in France, he spent all his summers in the north of Morocco and he feels Moroccan, in fact, he was 45 times capped by the national team.
As a coach, Regragui trained in Morocco and Qatar. He took over the national team at the end of August.
He has instilled in the team a great spirit of sacrifice and an effective way of defending with the ball. But he has adapted according to the circumstances, to different situations.
He started the World Cup against Luka Modric's Croatia and there we began to see the great defensive order that the coach was putting in place without ever giving up attack or possession. They got a fair draw. Against Belgium they played without complexes and deserved to win. They took advantage of the gifts from Courtois, who was not at his Champions League level. Against Canada they played tidy and made the most of their chances. A serious and effective game.
In the match against Spain their game was to wait at the back and counter-attack. It was also good for them because Luis Enrique's team was tired of playing as if it were handball, but without going deep or attacking down the flanks. They came close to scoring on one of their counter-attacks, but they were in good shape at the back and hardly conceded any chances. In a soporific Spanish game, only Morocco provided some excitement with their counter-attacks. The decision in the penalty shoot-out made them go down in history.
In the match against Portugal they were not as accurate and luck favoured them as the Portuguese team had several clear chances to score. On the other hand, their goalkeeper, in a bad save, gave En-Nesyri the chance to score. Regragui's team knew how to suffer and hold on with a great Bono.
Against France, the match was complicated from the start when the French scored the first goal in the fourth minute of the match.
There was no point in waiting and being eliminated and the Atlas Lions outplayed France in several phases of the match.
In the first half there were chances on both sides and Deschamps' side were played on equal terms. In the second half the game was under Moroccan control. The roles were reversed and Morocco did not deserve the 2-0 result.
Morocco's coach led his team to a World Cup semi-final through order, sacrifice and play when the game required it. A very well worked team where everyone knew what they had to do.
An outstanding performance for the Moroccan national team and its coach, Walid Regragui.
The Argentinian national team were the champions and therefore their coach can't have less than an A+. Lionel Scaloni was outstanding.
But, in addition to having Leo Messi, Scaloni was able to form a compact and united team. Several players improved the level they had shown in their teams. Rodrigo de Paul, Nahuel Molina, Otamendi and Acuña showed a much higher level than expected. In addition, Lionel Scaloni did not hesitate to change Paredes, Papu Gómez, Guido Rodríguez or Lautaro Martínez for young players like Julián Álvarez or Enzo Fernández.
This added to a great Messi, a very good Angel Di María and an extraordinary and unknown player like Alexis Mac Allister who worked, generated and scored. A permanent support for his teammates.
In goal the rude, but effective Dibu Martinez.
Despite the bad start against Saudi Arabia and the criticism that followed, the Argentinian coach did not change his idea of the game, but he did change the players who played it.
He had many detractors in his country because of his youth and in theory lack of experience. The defeat against Arabia gave arguments to these detractors, but he accepted the criticism, corrected the mistakes and made decisions. Magnificent World Cup.
The only downside to Scaloni is that he may have been a bit too soft at times and made defensive changes. In the final he gave a great lesson to the French coach Deschamps in the approach and motivation of the players. Argentina dismantled France in an unexpected way. But then with 2-0 and the game under control he took off the Albiceleste's best player, Angel Di Maria in the 64th minute with everything to play for as it turned out. He also replaced him with a defender, Marcos Acuña. It was a change that betrayed a certain vertigo on the part of the Argentinian coach which, added to Mbappé's extraordinary start, almost cost him a World Cup that seemed to have been won in normal time.
Zlatko Dalic, Croatia's coach, deserves a B not only for Croatia's third place in this World Cup, but for the last eight years. Let's remember that Croatia played and lost with honour in the final of the previous World Cup in Russia. What an era these two World Cups, Russia and Qatar, were, but it is over. Now the United States, Canada and Mexico await us.
Luka Modric's coach not only has the Real Madrid player and several top players such as Ivan Perisic, Mateo Kovacic and Gvardiol, but he has built a rocky yet creative team. He keeps it in the elite on the basis of a high level of football.
They drew with Morocco. They didn't let themselves be surprised by Regragui's team. He showed he knew them. They beat Canada with a great game and were able to hold on against a desperate Belgium who continued to play with 10 players by fielding a more than finished Hazard.
In the Round of 16 against a good Japan, they went through on penalties thanks to their experience and goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic.
But their greatest achievement came in the quarter-finals when they eliminated Brazil themselves. They held out until extra time thanks to a great defence, their goalkeeper and the mismanagement of Brazil's coach Tité, who made disastrous changes.
The Croatian team, despite Neymar's great goal in the 105th minute, kept believing and tied the game with a little bit of luck.
In the penalty shoot-out they again showed their experience and went through to the semi-finals.
Against the champions they did not play a good game and were outplayed by Argentina in all aspects. Perhaps the team was not up to the task. Dalic was unable to continue with the good management of the team that took him so far, but his work, like that of the Croatian national team, has once again been very good.
The negative side of the coaches has to be led by Hans-Dieter Flick, Germany's coach who failed to even make it past the group stage. He started against Spain, a team in decline since the arrival of Luis Enrique and his desire to be the star. They lost to Japan, showing an alarming defensive weakness. They beat Costa Rica with a lot of trouble. A team with a star-studded squad that their coach has not been able to work with. Flick's work was very poor.
Luis Enrique's work with Spain is also very deficient
It all started very badly when at Euro 2020 they sold us that Spain were doing very well. We lost in the semis on penalties against Italy (bad luck). But the reality was that the game was awful, with no attacking flair, abusing the touch and not creating chances. We won only one game out of six, against Slovakia. We went through on penalties against Switzerland in the quarter-finals, we went through on penalties against Croatia in the last 16. In the group stage we also drew against Sweden and Poland. Was it a good European Championship? No.
Luis Enrique's list of players for the World Cup in Qatar had many shortcomings and numerous absentees.
The management of the games was very poor, insisting on a touch that didn't generate chances and seemed to only seek not to lose. It was poorly managed until the drubbing of Costa Rica, creating an atmosphere of excessive euphoria. Japan put Lucho's team in their place and with Morocco there was one of the most boring matches in the history of the World Cup.
To top it all off, the penalty shoot-out was also a disastrous affair, with the Spanish coach on the bench ignoring those who were going to take the spot-kicks. A debacle that many of us were predicting, but which, deep down, we did not want. Lucho, the streamer, very poor.
Brazil coach Tité's work was deficient.
Brazil was one of the clear favourites to win the World Cup. Moreover, they had some extraordinary players that they did not know how to place or adapt to the different situations, as Lionel Scaloni did, for example.
They started well, beating a rocky Serbia and continued with more problems against Switzerland. Already qualified, the substitutes were unable to beat Cameroon.
In the Round of 16 they had no problems with South Korea, who they beat 4-1, but in the quarter-finals they needed a lot of attention and an unprejudiced coach. Croatia arrived with a great coach, Dalic.
Without the game being decided, he opted to withdraw Vinicius. He is an unbalanced player who can turn a game at any moment as he has shown at club level. He kept Neymar who kept losing balls. He continued his nonsense by replacing Richarlison with a player called Pedro who didn't touch the ball in the remaining ten minutes or in the 30 minutes of extra time.
After Neymar had given Brazil the lead and his gamble had paid off, he ruined everything by taking off Militao, the fastest player in the Carioca defence.
With a place in the semi-finals in his grasp, he threw the whole team into disarray with his changes and allowed himself to be caught out by Croatia on the counter-attack.
In the quarter-finals of a World Cup you can't do without experienced players who are used to playing in Champions League finals to bring on unknown and inexperienced players. He did not use Gabriel Martinelli who, along with Gabriel Jesus, are the best players in a Premier League leading Arsenal.
A coach who knows the Brazilian league very well, but who is not interested in Europe and has always shown no interest in Vinicius.
The Brazilian coach has done a poor job of getting a seventh place which is a failure. Brazil should have been in the top three without a doubt.
Didier Deschamps took France to the final, this is a success even though they were the previous champions. But France's play was far from what was expected. With the exception of Kylian Mbappé, who dazzled in the final and played some very good games, the French team was very solid, but did not dazzle with an eye-catching game. The end of the World Cup was very poor. England outplayed them in their quarter-final and only Southgate's team's lack of finishing saved them from elimination. In the semi-finals Morocco put them on the ropes.
Despite starting with the lead they were no better than Regragui's side. At the end of the first half, if El Yamiq's bicycle kick had gone in, the match would have been very complicated. Only Kylian Mbappé was making the difference and the absence of Karim Benzema, who could have easily played in that game, began to be felt. In fact, the Madrid striker had already played for Leganés. His bad relationship with Karim conditioned him and he was unable or unwilling to look for the good of the team, putting his personal phobias first.
The approach to the final and the lack of motivation of his players caused Argentina to erase them from the game in an inconceivable way that the whole world could not understand. Their reaction was to substitute an Olivier Giroud who has nowhere near the quality of Benzema, and a Dembelé who did not deserve to start in the final after a World Cup where he had gone unnoticed.
Curiously, he did appear in the final. To give Angel Di Maria an unnecessary penalty and be substituted in the 41st minute along with Giroud.
He also kept a very slow and unsuccessful Upamecano in the team even though he had Konaté who played a perfect game. He took too long to use Camavinga and Kingsley Coman.
In short, a very bad management of the squad. From sending off injured players who could have brought him a lot from the quarter-finals onwards, to ignoring very talented players.
Only Mbappé's great performance made the final exciting until the end because he is the best player in the world at the moment and he put the team on his shoulders, but the work of Didier Deschamps, with whom Mbappé himself was not very happy, was poor. France's first half in a World Cup final was hugely disappointing.
England coach Gareth Southgate did a great job with England. Kane's poor finishing from the penalty spot deprived them of eliminating France who they outplayed from start to finish. Despite losing in the quarter-finals, his team was one of the best in the World Cup. The role of England and Southgate was remarkable.
Portugal were unlucky in their match against Morocco. Fernando Santos completed a great team and for many they were favourites to reach the semi-finals. A lack of finishing condemned them. Not using Cristiano Ronaldo in the starting line-up was widely criticised, but the truth is that he is not at his best and against Switzerland his replacement, Ramos, scored three goals. He was criticised for not using Cristiano, Cancelo and Leao, but if any of the multiple chances had gone in Portugal would have gone ahead. Despite eighth place, Fernando Santos was good in Qatar.
Fifth place for the Netherlands, or Holland as we know them, is a good result. In the group stage they did well even though they were outplayed by Senegal, not outplayed. In the round of 16 they overcame the USA without any problems. Argentina were better than them in the quarter-finals and only in the last minutes a desperate reaction took them to penalties, which they lost. Louis Van Gaal made them believe until the end and they almost pulled off an upset. A good performance by the Netherlands coach.
Belgium was another World Cup disappointment. They beat Canada with difficulty. Courtois saved a penalty. Morocco outplayed them in the second match and in the final match they were unable to overcome Croatia. Their goalkeeper and striker Lukaku failed at times, but the inclusion of an Eden Hazard in the first two games as a starter weakened the team a lot. Roberto Martinez badly mismanaged a big squad.
Spaniard Felix Sanchez Blas who brought ideas from Barcelona's La Masia failed miserably with Qatar. They were by far the worst team at the World Cup. Teams a priori like them, Iran or Saudi Arabia, had a good World Cup.
In short, we could make a ranking of the coaches of the Qatar 2022 World Cup. Based on the team, their ranking and the game played. It would be:
- Lionel Scaloni Argentina Champion.
- Walid Regragui Morocco 4th classified.
- Zlatko Dalic Croatia 3rd Qualifier
- Gareth Southgate England 6th Qualifier
- Louis Van Gaal Netherlands 5th Qualifier
- Fernando Santos Portugal 8th Qualifier
- Didier Deschamps France Runner-Up
- Hajime Moriyasu Japan 9th placed
- Graham Arnold Australia 11th placed
- Paulo Bento South Korea 16th placed
- Aliou Cissé Senegal 10th placed
- Murat Yakin Switzerland 12th placed
- Gregg Berhalter United States 14th placed
- Czeslaw Michniewicz Poland 15th placed
- Hervé Renard Saudi Arabia 25th placed
- Carlos Queiroz Iran 26th placed
- Jalel Kadri Tunisia 21st Placed
- Tité Brazil 7th Qualifier
- Luis Enrique Spain 13th Placed
- Gustavo Alfaro Ecuador 18th Qualifier
- Rigobert Song Cameroon 19th Qualifier
- Diego Alonso Uruguay 20th placed
- Otto Addo Ghana 24th placed
- Luis F. Suarez Costa Rica 25th placed
- John Herdman Canada 31st placed
- Rob Page Wales 30th placed
- Kasper Hjulmand Denmark 28th Ranked
- Dragan Stojkovic Serbia 29th placed
- Gerardo Martino Mexico 22nd Qualifier
- Roberto Martinez Belgium 23rd Placed
- Hans Dieter Flick Germany 17th Placed
- Félix Sánchez Bas Qatar 32nd placed