 |
| |
|
 |
 |
 |
El Tri has its man Mexico names Lavolpe its new national team head coachPosted: Wednesday October 23, 2002 1:26 AMMEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico named former goalie Ricardo Lavolpe its new soccer coach late Tuesday night, hoping the Argentine's aggressive offensives can transform a national squad that has failed to live up to the lofty expectations of its fans in recent years. Lavolpe, 51, won the World Cup as a third-string goalie with the Argentine national team in 1978 but played most of his professional career with Atlante in Mexico's First Division. "I expect to do great things because I am already very familiar with Mexican soccer," Lavolpe said at a press conference just before midnight Tuesday. "I am very excited." In 1984 he received his first head coaching opportunity with the First Division's Puebla squad and later was he picked to coach the Chivas of Guadalajara, one of Mexico's most-dominant teams. Things did not go well for Lavolpe in Mexico's second-largest city, however, and he was fired after just 14 games. In 1991, he became Atlante's coach and immediately began experimenting with ways to improve the team's offensive prowess. He installed a rapid-fire offense designed to make every play a potential scoring opportunity and eventually guided Atlante to a championship in the 1992-93 season. Lavolpe became head coach of Mexico City's America squad in 1996, but the team got off to a disastrous start and he was fired after just four games. Lavolpe resurrected his head coaching career last year with Toluca, where he relied on an ever-changing lineup and found a winning formula that mixed the skills of deliberate veterans with the raw talent of unpolished young players. Toluca's aggressive, attacking offensive quickly proved overwhelming for many opponents and helped Lavolpe's squad compete for the First Division's best record each of the last two seasons. Mexican Soccer Federation officials said they were most impressed with Lavolpe's offensive innovations. Lavolpe replaces Javier Aguirre, who took over Mexico's struggling national team last year and guided the squad to the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. Aguirre resigned to coach a Spanish club after Mexico was eliminated by the United States in the World Cup's second round. Most analysts agree that Lavolpe was the least qualified of the coaches mentioned as leading candidates for Mexico's top soccer coaching position. The soccer federation had also pursued Carlos Bianchi, the former coach of Argentina's Boca Juniors, and was reportedly interested in Luiz Felipe Scolari, who won the 2002 World Cup with Brazil. But federation officials said Tuesday night that they settled on Lavolpe because of his ability to teach young players, a skill soccer many believe will be most-essential to the success of Mexico's national squad in coming years.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
