Papu Gómez on Scaloni before return: “They wanted him out” | OneFootball

On October 20th, Alejandro Gómez will be eligible to officially return to playing football after a very long suspension that has been in place since a positive doping test result in October 2022, when he was a player for Sevilla. The results were revealed after he became a world champion in Qatar with the Argentine National Team, when he had joined the Italian club Monza.

Linked to Padova in Serie B, the attacking midfielder is counting the days to be happy again on the field, knowing that at 37 years old, he is in the final stages of his career. He hopes to leave behind many of the setbacks he faced after winning the third star for La Albiceleste, especially the fact that he was isolated by the group of players without the true reasons ever being fully clarified.

After that World Cup and before the sanction was announced, Papu stopped being part of Lionel Scaloni's call-ups and was not even part of the celebrations in Argentina during the immediately following FIFA Date. His relationship with the coach, however, remained during those times of enigmatic conflict, and the coach himself admitted to having spoken more than once with the player after his suspension.

The relationship between them began long before they were together in the National Team, and in a recent interview with Julián Polo, while waiting to play officially again, Alejandro Gómez revealed the details: “I arrived at Atalanta and Scaloni was there, kind of sidelined. He was already at the end of his career, he was 36 and came from Lazio. He had already had some issues, they had kind of separated him, they wanted to let him go. But he trained with us. To the fullest, eh. An extraordinary professional. And when I arrived at Atalanta, I moved to the same neighborhood as him,” recounted the only world champion who shared a team as a player with the coach.

And he continued: “He was someone who helped me with everything from day one. To buy a car, to find a house, everything. As a teammate, as a player, he was unbearable in a good way. He was active all the time, full of energy, cracking jokes, training, always at full speed. He was very well-liked in the locker room and even then he was looking to become a coach. He took his first course here in Bergamo.”

Evaluating him as the coach of the Argentine National Team, Papu Gómez assured that Lionel Scaloni's greatest virtue was his group management after the failure of Jorge Sampaoli's cycle, of which he had already been part as a member of the coaching staff.

“He did a very good renewal after Russia 2018, with many young players, very hungry. He surrounded Leo (Messi) well, with talented players who would give everything for him. Then, day by day, he is very close to the player and that is appreciated. He is straightforward, doesn't tell you nonsense. Then, obviously, the results started coming, and all that leads to creating an atmosphere of great harmony,” he explained.

Cuti Romero, recommended by Papu Before Lionel Scaloni chose him to be part of the 2021 Copa América, which was the first title for both in the Argentine National Team, Alejandro Gómez was responsible for recommending Cristian Romero, who was his teammate at Atalanta and ended up becoming a key piece in the defense during his tenure.

“I remember that at that time Scaloni was looking for a left-sided central defender. I was not yet called up. They were looking for a left-footed central defender and he came to see Palomino at Atalanta. He came, told me about it, and I said ‘take Cuti because he's a star’. He didn’t say anything to me. I was like ‘come on, call me’. In the end, he called me first and one or two call-ups later, he called Cuti, who Samuel and Ayala had already been following. Extraordinary, I had never seen anything like it,” he recounted.

He also recalled how he motivated him before each match: “I always teased him. We played against Roma and I would say ‘look, today you're playing against Dzeko, today you won't touch the ball’. He would say ‘oh, yeah. You'll see. And Dzeko wouldn’t touch the ball. We played against Inter, with Lukaku and Lautaro. I’d say ‘you know the dance they're going to give you’. And he would say ‘today I’ll break both of them’. And they wouldn’t touch it. He has character, personality. Obviously, he improved a lot in playing the ball out from the back. He improved in several aspects but he already had it inside. The rest was just polishing. Timely, aggressive, impressive.”

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