Argentinians in Bolivia’s coaching team behind play-off run | OneFootball

Maximiliano Alonso and Pablo Sciacia, two physical trainers from Jujuy, are part of Óscar Villegas’s work group. Villegas took charge of the national team in mid-2024, restructured the youth divisions of La Verde, and got them into the playoff for the 2026 World Cup.

— Maxi, I urgently need to talk to you.

When Maximiliano Alonso received the message he had waited for most of his life, more than a dozen clubs, six countries, a daughter, a stint in football, a premature retirement, a career in Physical Education, and a failed adaptation in Buenos Aires had already passed. But he never read it. The dream he had been chasing for 34 years was just a WhatsApp away, though he never realized it because when it was sent, he was at home, spending time with his family. Luckily, 24 hours later, after receiving no reply, Óscar Villegas picked up the phone and called him. That’s how the story began of one of the physical trainers who is part of the coaching staff of the Bolivian National Team, which is also the story of how the group of professionals was formed that got La Verde into the playoff for the 2026 World Cup.

Villegas and Alonso didn’t know each other personally, but they had spoken a couple of times and had references about each other from mutual acquaintances. The Bolivia coach, who before taking over in July 2024 had spent a long time as youth coordinator at Always Ready, had wanted to bring Alonso to the El Alto club shortly before, on the advice of Roberto Ariñez, a former goalkeeper who had crossed paths with the Jujuy native at Independiente de Sucre. But the Argentine chose to go to Ecuador to work at Delfín. Despite that, they stayed in touch, and when Villegas landed at the national team, he brought him on board. In turn, Alonso also opened the door for his compatriot, Pablo Sciacia, who has spent almost two decades in physical training at clubs in Peru and Bolivia, and with whom he works side by side to get the squad in top shape.

The story of this work group that restored hope to a nation began to be written in San Salvador de Jujuy more than 15 years ago, when Alonso was a teenager in the youth divisions of Gimnasia y Esgrima in that province and Sciacia was the coach. From that moment, their paths were linked. Alonso stopped pursuing football at 18 and, without having debuted in the First Division of the Lobo, began studying Physical Education with the goal of making a living from the sport in some way. One of his teachers, of course, was Sciacia.

It wasn’t long before Maxi turned 23, was in the final stretch of his studies, and received a job offer via Facebook: it was from Sciacia, who offered him a move to Peru to work at Coronel Bolognesi, a club that some time before had as coach an unknown Argentine just starting a career that would take him to the elite, Jorge Sampaoli. Thus began the story of both coaches, who reunited after the Copa América at La Verde. Today, the student is the head physical trainer and the teacher is his assistant.

“We had crossed paths at Gimnasia and he had great potential, because he was very charismatic, disciplined, and jokingly I told him he’d make a good coach, that one day we’d work together. Time passed and well, here we are,” Sciacia recalled some time ago in a conversation with TyCSports.com.

“I was always very dedicated and disciplined. I was the kind of person who asked everything. Why did we do this exercise, what for? As the years went by and I realized the possibility of being a professional footballer was slipping away, I told myself I couldn’t waste any more time and thought about what I wanted to do to make a living from this. That’s when physical training appeared,” confirms Alonso, who before emigrating gained experience in his homeland: he was part of the soccer school run by former Paraguayan player Carlos Morales Santos and, after just two months, at only 19 years old, moved to Ciudad de Nieva, a club competing in the local league and coached by Marcelo Popeye Herrera, former assistant to Carlos Bianchi, whom he accompanied at Boca and whom he credits as one of his greatest mentors.

Just as Alonso tried his luck in football, Pablo, 48 years old and son of a former footballer who played for clubs like Vélez and San Lorenzo, also did all his youth training at the Jujuy Lobo. He liked playing as a right winger but was willing to fill in wherever needed. He made it to the First Division but was only considered for the team that played in the local league, then moved to Perico in his hometown before relocating to Tucumán to study and swap his boots for a tracksuit and whistle.

These two men from Jujuy who once dreamed of becoming footballers and, though they didn’t make it, found ways to stay connected to the sport, are now two key members of the group of 14 professionals working under Villegas, aiming to rebuild Bolivian football from the ground up, after years of poor results and following a Copa América in which they hit rock bottom: zero points, ten goals conceded, and just one scored in the three group stage matches.

What aspects did you identify that needed strengthening in Bolivian football?

— MA: We want to change many things here in Bolivia, not just the sporting side but also the developmental side and the growth of those players we need for the national team. For example, today the U-16s are starting here and there are talented youngsters who need to be guided and start developing habits, and that’s what we’re here for.

— PS: There’s a deficit in training; the kids practically don’t have good competition. I’ve been with youth teams that barely played 18 matches in a year, while in Argentina they play around 50. We also started a process of analyzing the youngest players to see the differences in how a 16-year-old here behaves compared to one of the same age in Brazil or Argentina.

Even though he joined the coaching staff through Alonso, Sciacia worked almost four years, out of his 19-year career, alongside Villegas. He was part of the successful process that the current coach had at Always Ready, a team he led to compete in the Copa Libertadores U-20, which is why they know several of the youngsters now emerging in the senior team. “When I was at Real Garcilaso in 2020, he contacted me because he was going there to do a mini preseason with Always Ready. The following year, I had moved to Cienciano and the president called me to see if I was interested in joining a project he had to promote kids and bring in some from other cities. That’s how I arrived in Bolivia and reconnected with coach Óscar,” explains Sciacia, who knows the coach very well.

Peru, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Bolivia were the countries Alonso passed through before reaching the national team, a dream he had from the start and which motivates him even more because, although he is Argentine, his wife and daughter are Bolivian. Sciacia’s journey was just as extensive, though without as many border crossings, and he also reached the pinnacle of his career with his arrival at the national team. Two globetrotters who started a journey over a decade ago in provincial football, where amateurism prevails, and who are working to help a country qualify for a World Cup again, something they have only achieved through qualifiers in 1994. It’s been 31 years.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.