Yeah, agreed that a lot of your previous squads were overblown in terms of “strength” - they were fairly unbalanced and usually “top heavy”, lacking in defence and midfield particularly. You have a much more balanced squad but also very team orientated - although obviously Messi’s talents still shine through, as it’s done all his career. I wasn’t even aware that he had Ayala and Aimar as part of his coaching squad. How would you describe his tactics/approach to the game? And has he ever mentioned any ambitions after the NT?
Nope he didn't talked about his future.
I think he is flexible, lots of work analyzing the rival, yet not an obssesive fella like Bielsa, Simeone, Bilardo, Van Gaal and such...he has a strong personality (like when he was a player), but he is a Players Coach, he is a mix between Basile, Ancelotti, Menotti old style players coaches, with lots of current work on rivals, tactics etc add to the mix and specialists in diff areas surrounding him (Ayala, Samuel and Aimar).
PD: I really want Aimar to manage the kids, the youngsters, but I guess it's too important for the Senior team to let him go.
I think he wasn't nailing it at the beggining, but he certainly did change during his tenure.
The one thing I do not like that much, it's that like almost any Argie Coach, sometimes he plays too much his pragmatic card at certain moments in matches and Argentina historically just can't do it. He tried to close shop many times in an unnecesary way and we ended suffering (specially in the WC), I preffer like this last match to not make excessive defensive changes and continue to seek goals, that keeps the team focus.
He also already prooved that he is great preparing finals, no matter the importance of them, relaxation it's not a word in his dictionary. He mostly does what the moments demands and has a quick reaction during games if sthg goes south.
You can see him absolutely focus during them (and every match) when the camera catches him, no matter what happens in the field and it's hard to have such a great composure while being as passionate and hot blooded as he actually is, quite an intelligent fella.
Also I like a lot his offensive apporach, specially in terms of having many good feet in the squad, without the typical only destroyer.
At some point of their carreers all of Paredes, De Paul, Macca, Palacios and obviously Dybala or Lo Celso had been organizative 5's or 10's, mostly offensive oriented players, yet they have to run like crazy and defend if they all want to play together, it doesn't matter if none of them is Riquelme, Redondo, Maradona, Kempes, Sivori, Di Stefano or any of those off the charts players, the sum of the parts and the ideology behind treating the ball well, it's vital and he respects that, more when this allows to give freedom to an older fella call Messi to get him involved with advantage and more rested.
I like that he asks solidarity from all of them to mark, pressure, but also THEY MUST offer themselves to play. I like a lot his polivalent mids, like Macca, or what Palacios can be, we can't complain about De Paul no matter his Club Carreer, specially in KO matches and finals, the guy was superb. Yet I also think that he has to invest in some new youngsters with dribbling, we've already lost Di Maria and Messi ain't vintage Messi. We need surprise, more dynamism to combine with all the passing and to the very least agility and quick feet if we don't find some Stocky powerful dribbler like Kun, Tevez and so many we always tend to had.
Sorry for the long post
