“I don’t listen and I follow, because much of what is forbidden makes me live“.
The phrase, an excerpt from the song “Prohibido”, by the band Callejeros, is tattooed on the left forearm of Jorge Sampaoli, announced yesterday (14) as Flamengo’s new coach.
It illustrates not only his fanaticism for Argentine rock but also his somewhat “loco“, according to the view of most fans and journalists in the neighboring country.
The confusions of the 63-year-old coach deserve rereading over the weekend that marks the beginning of his history at the club with the biggest crowd in Brazil.
His biography is full of troubles, and the column now reviews five of them.
The crazy tree
Sampaoli was a beginner technician from the Rosário floodplain when he was expelled and had to leave his post in a field that did not even have a bleacher.
He didn’t hesitate. He climbed the tree behind the wall that separated the field from the sidewalk and commanded his team, Casilda’s Alumni, from there. George was 35 years old. The photo is classic in Argentina.
Also classic was the sequence of what happened to the bald tram hanging from the tree. He mixed orders to his players with insults to the referees, and it almost ended in a generalized brawl.
Improvisation is a strong style of his own, which he defines as a “son of the street”.
Sampaoli was always self-taught and always had one of the strongest phrases to define his teaching methods: ”The streets were my university and people, especially the humblest, my best teachers”.
He used to say that he learned more in a year living with the Barra-Brava River than in his entire life alongside millionaires and famous football players.
Boca x River inside the bench
Sampaoli was left-handed and short enough to be called Maradona in his hometown of Casilda, in the province of Rosario.
But it wasn’t the quality of his football on the floodplains that made him be compared to Diego, but his true obsession with the game. He talked about football 24 hours a day and was always on top of everything that was going on in Argentina and abroad. He was so anxious, he arrived at the newsstand closest to his house before it even opened. ” Jorge was unbearable, he walked alone repeating lineups out loud ”, his neighbors at the time told Argentine TVs in 2017.
Jorge ran after the ball and looking for sustenance for his sporting dreams. He worked as a teller at Banco Santa Fe in Casilda precisely to finance his adventures related to the world of football. He was 19 years old. At 20, after fighting with a Boca fan in the middle of the agency, he was sent away.
The coach has always been a passionate River Plate fan. His obsession was such that he painted his room the club’s red and white and named the family dog Beto Alonso.
He always went to the Monumental de Núñez — but he didn’t have the money to pay the entrance fee, and he jumped over the turnstiles with Casilda’s other colleagues.
humiliated police officer
Sampaoli never fell in love with Argentine fans when he was coach of the national team. And he considerably increased his number of detractors by humiliating a policeman on the way out of his daughter Sabrina’s wedding in Casilda, his hometown.
The technician was in a Ford Focus crammed with seven people. When the policeman stopped the vehicle and asked some of the passengers to get out for safety reasons, Sampaoli had to be restrained so as not to attack the agent and even uttered a pitiful phrase: “Idiot, you earn a hundred pesos a month, stupid.”
Sampaoli admitted that the situation in Argentina is complicated
Image: Marcos Brindicci/Reuters
Philosopher and journalist Miguel Wiñazki put his finger on the wound: “Sampaoli has a quote from Che Guevara tattooed on his arm and he talks about someone’s salary. It’s a fake.”
The AFA kept him in the job, despite the fact that, by then, he had already worn out the patience of the top hats (too hyperactive, he received the nickname “Hospital“, the “Sparkle”). If there was more time left for the World Cup held in Russia, he would possibly have been fired.
Another controversy during his time in charge of the Argentine national team was his famous friendship with Pato Fontanet, lead singer of the Callejeros, a band involved in the tragedy that killed almost 200 people in a fire at the República Cromañon concert hall, in Buenos Aires, in 2004.
Fontanet was arrested after being tried as one of those responsible for the catastrophe – and, behind bars in Ezeiza prison, he received a visit from Sampaoli, who was leading a campaign for his release.
The coach has always dealt with an avalanche of criticism in the Argentine press (where he was called, among other things, “cagão”, “papudo” and “sell smoke“, slang for someone who is a fraud and tries to “sell smoke”).
santista fury
Jorge Sampaoli commanded Santos in 2019 and collected stories in Baixada. He went to training on a bicycle (stolen from a bank door) and gave gifts to children who climbed the trees around CT Rei Pelé.
The coach said that living in Santos was “the best thing that happened to him”. But not even the peace of the waterfront prevented him from throwing tantrums like breaking the timer and calling a fan to fight in the victory over Bahia in Vila Belmiro.
“About the fan, I was bothered because anyone who tries to provoke someone from Santos bothers me. This fan is surely from Bahia with the Santos shirt. That’s why I was bothered”, he said.
Of the broken chronometer, he explained: “I was very angry, I felt impotent and then I wanted to go back, but I had already lost the watch”.
Madness on the fence
Sampaoli also showed no greater control at Atlético-MG.
In his farewell to Galo (3-2 at Sport on Ilha do Retiro in February of this year), he ended up being expelled, after insulting referee Rodolpho Toski Marques.
The Argentine received a red card and invaded the pitch, even during the match: “You are a naughty thief”, he shouted at Rodolpho.
Sampaoli climbs the fence to curse the referee
Image: Playback Twitter
The referee recorded on the scoresheet that Sampaoli, even after being expelled, continued cursing him on the wire fence at Ilha do Retiro.
And more: he even reported that his assistant, Pablo Fernández, excessively celebrated the third goal of the Galo and provoked the Sport bench. The target was Emilio Faro, Jair Ventura’s assistant, who almost exchanged punches with the Argentine.
