A Teacher and Student Reunite in the World Cup Final
Luis de la Fuente and Lionel Scaloni will meet as opposing managers in the World Cup final in New Jersey, but their paths crossed long before either reached football’s biggest stage. In 2017, during the early uncertainty of his post-playing career, Scaloni enrolled at the Spanish federation to study for his Uefa Pro Licence, the highest coaching qualification in European football. De la Fuente taught the technique module on that course and was still in charge of Spain’s Under-19s at the same moment, and the two men formed a bond that has lasted ever since.
Scaloni passed the course with one of the best marks in his year and has said that De la Fuente gave him and his classmates “an enormous hand”. The connection between them runs deeper than a shared classroom. Both became national coaches after periods when football seemed to have left them behind, and both have built teams that function at their core like families, with values as close to sport as to the Catholicism they both practise.
Two Outsiders Who Never Managed a Top-Flight Club
De la Fuente is bidding to become a World Cup winner and European champion at the same time. Scaloni, meanwhile, stands 90 minutes from defending his world title. Not bad for two men who have not managed a top-flight club game between them. De la Fuente grew up in Haro, in the wine region of La Rioja, and after retiring as a player in 1994 spent 15 years in lower-league management, youth roles and assistant positions.
He was sacked as manager of second-tier Deportivo Alaves in 2011 and spent the next 18 months out of work, drifting away from football. His route back began with a newspaper advertisement for a youth coach with the Spanish federation. He rang former Spain manager Inaki Saez, who told the FA De la Fuente was the ideal man, and the initial three-month contract was to take Spain’s Under-19s to the European Championship in Lithuania.
He lost to France in the semi-finals but earned a longer deal, then won the next Under-19 Euros with Rodri, Unai Simon and Mikel Merino. Spain’s national team boss since 2022, De la Fuente had coached most of this squad since adolescence. He guided them through under-19, under-21 and Olympic level, and has known Dani Olmo, Martin Zubimendi, Pedri, Mikel Oyarzabal and Marc Cucurella, plus their families, for a decade.
De la Fuente’s Culture of Family and Calm
The Spain manager centres his method on respect for rivals and the process. He preaches patience and calmness rather than urgency. His work is built on sacrifice, humility and collective responsibility, sporting values that replicate religious ones. Half an hour before the Euro 2024 final, with the stadium filling, he was on the phone checking his family had arrived safely.
In this World Cup, De la Fuente pulled the federation’s photographer into a squad embrace after learning mid-match that the man’s mother had died. Before the semi-final against France, a question about his brother, who died three years ago, visibly broke him in the pre-match news conference. Family is the foundation of everything around him, and his son Alberto is a member of Spain’s coaching staff.
Scaloni’s Dressing-Room Education
Scaloni’s education happened in Argentine dressing rooms with their own unwritten hierarchy, where senior players carry authority coaches are expected to respect. He grew up in Pujato, near Rosario, where his family still farms maize, wheat and soy, and was part of Argentina’s 1997 Under-20 World Cup triumph in Malaysia alongside Walter Samuel and Pablo Aimar, now both on his bench.
That trip also left him with a fear of flying after a forced landing. On Deportivo La Coruna away trips around Spain, he travelled out with team-mates but came home by car with his father. The drives covered 600km to Madrid and 1,000km to Barcelona.
After retiring in 2014-15, Scaloni struggled with the transition until taking a group of 14-year-olds at Son Caliu, a small club near his Mallorca home, where he was happy for the first time since stopping playing. He became Sevilla assistant in 2016 under Jorge Sampaoli, followed him to Argentina a year later, and was named successor after Sampaoli’s 2018 World Cup dismissal. Despite heavy criticism over his lack of experience, he has held the post since. His coaching staff are mostly former players who understand what internationals need: fewer tactical lectures, more shared stories. The barbecues, karaoke nights and mixing of stardom with ordinary moments define the Argentina changing room.
A Shared Belief in the Collective
Both coaches have built sides whose greatest strength is the trust a well-managed group generates. Former Spanish Football Federation director Fernando Hierro described De la Fuente as “an expert of the raw material there is in Spanish football who has built a family where they enjoy themselves”, a line that could fit Scaloni’s Argentina almost word for word. De la Fuente kept faith with a generation he coached since their teens; Scaloni kept faith with Messi’s supporting cast after the 2019 Copa América semi-final loss to Brazil, and it repaid him within two years in the Maracana with Messi’s first national-team title.
Asked what succeeding with the national team means, De la Fuente talks about the privilege of watching “the people of your country enjoy themselves again”. Scaloni keeps mentioning those in the stands, their efforts to follow the national team, and those back home. On Sunday, the student and the teacher meet again, and they will remember that losing is part of sport, but winning will make it even more improbable that two men once cast out of football have written themselves back into its main book.