分类： sports

The 2026 FIFA World Cup final will bring two very different coaching journeys to a head in New Jersey, when Spain’s Luis de la Fuente and Argentina’s Lionel Scaloni go head-to-head for the sport’s most prestigious international prize. Though their paths to the final diverged wildly in every sense, a little-known personal connection binds the two managers together, one that traces all the way back to 2017.

That year, Scaloni found himself adrift after retiring from playing, and enrolled in the Spanish Football Federation’s UEFA Pro Licence course – the highest-level coaching qualification available in European football. It was here that the two men first crossed paths: De la Fuente, who was then leading Spain’s Under-19 national team, taught the course’s technical skills module. Scaloni went on to graduate with one of the highest marks in his cohort, and has repeatedly credited De la Fuente for providing critical, generous guidance to him and his fellow students. The pair have maintained a close bond in the years since.

Where De la Fuente is a product of Spain’s structured national youth development system, Scaloni’s coaching ethos was shaped by the unique, unwritten locker-room culture of Argentine club football. What unites them, beyond that 2017 classroom encounter, is that both climbed to the pinnacle of international football after periods where the sport had left them on the margins, and both have built their national sides around the core principle of team as family – values rooted in the shared Catholic faith both men practice. It is an unlikely milestone for two coaches who have never managed a single top-flight club game between them.

De la Fuente’s journey to the World Cup final began in Haro, the heart of Spain’s Rioja wine country famous for its annual chaotic wine battle where thousands drench each other in red wine. After hanging up his playing boots in 1994, he spent 15 years bouncing between lower league club roles, youth coaching positions and assistant coaching jobs. He was dismissed from his role as manager of Segunda División side Deportivo Alaves in 2011, and spent 18 months out of work, slowly drifting away from the sport he dedicated his life to.

His turning point came when he spotted a newspaper advertisement for a youth coaching role with the Spanish Football Federation. He reached out to former Spain manager Inaki Saez, who endorsed him to the federation as the perfect candidate. He was offered a three-month contract to lead Spain’s Under-19 side at the European Championship in Lithuania; while they lost to France in the semi-finals, his performance earned him a permanent spot. His next Under-19 squad, featuring future senior stars Rodri, Unai Simon and Mikel Merino, took home the European title, and a steady rise up the ranks followed. By the time he was appointed senior Spain manager in 2022, he had coached most of the current 2026 World Cup squad since their teenage years, across Under-19, Under-21 and Olympic levels, winning multiple youth titles along the way. He has known star players including Pedri, Dani Olmo and Martin Zubimendi, and their families, for more than a decade.

De la Fuente’s coaching philosophy centers on fostering respect for opponents, trust in the process, and calm, patient leadership. His life and work are built on sacrifice, humility and collective responsibility – values that mirror his religious beliefs, visible in small, personal gestures. Ahead of the Euro 2024 final, as the stadium filled with fans, he took time to call his family to confirm they had arrived safely. Midway through a World Cup match this year, when he learned the federation’s photographer had lost his mother, he pulled the man into a group hug with the entire squad. And ahead of this tournament’s semi-final against France, he was visibly overcome with emotion when asked about his brother, who passed away three years ago. For De la Fuente, family is the foundation of everything: his own son Alberto now serves on his senior Spain coaching staff.

In contrast, Scaloni’s coaching education did not come from a federation classroom, but from the decades he spent in Argentine locker rooms, where unwritten hierarchies and norms place senior players’ authority above all else. He grew up in the small farming town of Pujato, near Rosario, where his family still grows corn, wheat and soy, and he learned the game on local fields driven by his father Angel. Scaloni was part of Argentina’s 1997 Under-20 World Cup winning squad alongside Walter Samuel and Pablo Aimar, who now work alongside him as assistant coaches. That tournament also left him with a lifelong fear of flying after a forced landing during the event; for years, while playing for Deportivo La Coruna, he would travel to away matches with the team but drive hundreds of kilometers home alone with his father after the game. He made more than 200 appearances for Deportivo, helped the club win a La Liga title, and went on to play for a string of European clubs, including a loan spell at West Ham United in 2006, before retiring in 2015.

Retirement hit Scaloni harder than he expected. Having settled in Mallorca with his wife Elisa and their two young children, he struggled to adjust to life off the pitch. He took a job coaching a local under-14 side at small club Son Caliu, just 10 minutes from his home, and stood on the touchline freezing through cold mornings, but found it the first content he had felt since retiring. He has since spoken out in support of every club employing psychologists to help players prepare for the disorientation of post-retirement life.

Unlike De la Fuente, Scaloni never built a career bouncing between domestic club roles. He became an assistant coach at Sevilla under fellow Argentine Jorge Sampaoli in 2016, and the pair moved to the Argentina national set-up a year later. When Sampaoli was sacked after Argentina’s early exit from the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Scaloni was eventually named interim, then permanent manager – despite widespread public criticism of his lack of top-level experience. He has held the post ever since.

Scaloni’s greatest strength is not tactical innovation. His coaching staff is made up almost entirely of former teammates and players, who understand that elite international players need less tactical lecturing and more connection. Casual barbecues, team karaoke nights, and deliberately blending superstar status with ordinary, shared moments are the foundation of Argentina’s locker room culture. After leading Argentina to a 2022 World Cup win and a Copa America title, Scaloni began seeing a psychologist himself to process the pressure and emotion of the achievement, compounded by his parents’ illness at the time; long bike rides and therapy helped him navigate that period.

For both coaches, their sides’ greatest strength is not individual stardom, but the collective trust built through intentional team culture. 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 description that fits Scaloni’s Argentina equally well. Both prioritize continuity over upheaval: De la Fuente stuck by the generation of players he nurtured from their teens, while Scaloni retained the core of Messi’s supporting cast even after a devastating semi-final loss to Brazil at the 2019 Copa America. That loyalty paid off just two years later, when Argentina won the 2022 World Cup at the Maracana, securing Messi his first senior international trophy.

When asked what success with their national team means, both men give nearly identical answers. De la Fuente calls it a privilege to watch “the people of your country enjoy themselves again”, while Scaloni repeatedly emphasizes the effort of fans who follow the team across the world and wait for them back home.

On final match day, the former teacher and his former student will meet again as rivals. Both know that defeat is an inevitable part of sport. But whoever lifts the trophy, the moment will be a historic one: two men who were once cast aside by football have written their names back into the sport’s biggest story.

As Argentina prepares to face Spain for its fourth FIFA World Cup title, a stark contrast in soccer development models has renewed longstanding questions about why the United States, a nation of 330 million people, has never reached the upper echelons of men’s international soccer success. After the U.S. men’s team’s early exit from the 2026 World Cup, soccer leaders and analysts across the country are zeroing in on one core issue: the pay-to-play system that dominates American youth soccer, and how it is holding back the nation’s soccer potential.

Unlike Argentina, where developing a homegrown star who goes on to play for the national team is the highest honor for a local club, the U.S. youth soccer ecosystem is built around charging families for access to competitive play. Most youth organizations rely on player fees to stay operational, retaining players as long as their families can keep paying. For elite programs, the costs are staggering: a 2024 Project Play report found the average U.S. family spends $1,016 per year on a child’s primary youth sport, a 46% jump from five years prior. For elite soccer, that annual figure can top $12,000 once team dues, equipment, and tournament travel are added up. Retired Colorado salesman Dan Chisesi, who raised two children who played youth soccer, estimates he spent tens of thousands of dollars on the sport over decades. Even though his children gained positive memories, he echoes a common concern: “I believe youth sports have become somewhat elitist. I think we’re missing out on a lot of talent because people just can’t afford these travel competitive teams.”

This financial barrier means countless talented young players never get the chance to showcase their skills. With between 4 million and 6 million children playing soccer across the U.S., the sport’s elite tier remains out of reach for low-income families. Longtime U.S. men’s national team goalkeeper Kasey Keller summed up the issue bluntly, noting that even a generational talent like Erling Haaland would likely be pushed into the NFL rather than professional soccer if he grew up in the current American system, where football and basketball dominate the attention of sports fans and athletes alike.

The fragmented governance of U.S. youth soccer only exacerbates the problem. The sport is overseen by more than seven national governing bodies and 54 state federations, creating a fractured system that former U.S. Youth Soccer CEO Skip Gilbert describes as more focused on poaching players between competing leagues than building a cohesive talent pipeline. Gilbert, who recently updated his proposal for structural reform, argues that consolidating all youth soccer organizations under the umbrella of the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) would create a unified national talent database, eliminating the fragmented competition for paying players that currently plagues the system. Critics warn the plan would only consolidate power among existing governing bodies, but Gilbert counters that the current status quo leaves families with no alternative to the pay-to-play model: “And parents, God love all of us, we’re more than happy to write checks if we think it’s going to help our kids. The downside is, there isn’t another pathway. You have to go into that pay-or-play model.”

Major League Soccer (MLS), which took over the country’s primary national development program as MLS Next in 2020 after the USSF shuttered its previous program amid COVID-19-related financial losses, is currently the closest thing to an official national talent pipeline. This fall, the league will serve roughly 53,000 players, but only a tiny fraction receive full subsidies for training, physical therapy, travel, and equipment. The top-tier homegrown division has more than 17,000 players, with just 3,000 playing for free in MLS club academies. While MLS has launched a grant program that compensates grassroots clubs for developing players who go on to join the top league, the fledgling system pales in comparison to the open talent ecosystems common in Argentina, Europe, and other South American soccer powerhouses.

In those countries, a system of promotion and relegation across hundreds of pro and semi-pro leagues creates constant incentive for clubs to scout and develop undiscovered talent wherever it exists. Young players can earn a spot on a top team through performance alone, and transfer fees for top talent create a steady revenue stream that funds grassroots scouting and development. This system is far from perfect: Argentina’s top academies have faced decades of allegations of minor exploitation and sexual abuse, and constant high-stakes talent evaluation takes a heavy emotional toll on young players. But it also eliminates the financial barrier that locks talented low-income players out of elite development in the U.S.

“If you’re not in that ecosystem, you might have a hard time understanding, ‘Well, how could what happens at the professional level have any impact on my son or daughter’s 12-year-old soccer team?’ But it has a huge impact. It’s just a very different bar to cross” than in America, explained Pennsylvania grassroots coach Rory O’Neill.

USSF and MLS leaders are not calling for copying international models wholesale, however. USSF CEO JT Baston explained the federation’s current strategy: “Our strategy should not be to copy and paste what works in another country. It’s, how do we, in partnership with the pro clubs, design the right youth pathways here. It looks like the hub-and-spoke model where you’re leveraging the best of the professional clubs, leveraging the best of the rest of the ecosystem here and the national team program.”

MLS leaders point to small wins that show the potential of improving the current system rather than replacing it. Brad Sims, CEO of MLS side NYCFC, shared the story of Seymour Reid, an 18-year-old Jamaican-born player from New York who was discovered playing pickup soccer five years ago, with no prior experience in an organized club. Reid has now signed a professional contract with NYCFC and was a finalist for the 2025 MLS Pathway Player of the Year. But Sims acknowledges that success stories like Reid’s are rare: “I wonder how many kids like that are playing around the country who don’t have the connections or don’t have the finances to play. But this is a bigger problem that’s not on MLS clubs or maybe even the MLS league to solve independently. I think U.S. Soccer obviously wants to figure that out as much as anybody.”

Former U.S. men’s national team captain Michael Bradley, now head coach of MLS side New York Red Bulls, says the U.S. must build a model that fits its own unique sports culture rather than trying to mimic global powers. “We have our own soccer culture,” he said. “The way the game looks in this country, the way it feels, what we are as a soccer nation, is going to be different than other places, and that’s OK. We don’t need to pretend to be something that we’re not.”

Even so, experts and families agree that overhauling the pay-to-play model and unifying the fragmented youth system will take decades. While incremental improvements to the current system can yield better results sooner, creating a sustainable pipeline of top-tier talent that can compete for World Cup titles will require long-term, structural change that addresses the core inequalities of the current American system.

As global football fans turned their attention to the final stretch of the 2026 FIFA World Cup this week, a groundbreaking moment for women’s adaptive sports unfolded on a sunlit pitch in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. From afar, the athletes sprinting across the grass, executing sharp corner kicks, and weaving past defending players looked like any elite group training for a top-tier international tournament. A closer look revealed their extraordinary resilience: goalkeepers dove to stop shots using only one arm, while outfield players propelled themselves down the field with crutches, their prosthetic limbs left on the sidelines per tournament rules.

This five-day gathering marked the first regional training camp for female amputee football players across South America, all working toward a spot on their national rosters for the 2027 Women’s Amputee Football World Cup set to be hosted in Poland. Thirty-five women from 10 Latin American nations — including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, and Colombia — gathered in Bolivia’s lowland eastern hub to hone their skills, wraping up the camp with a series of friendly exhibition matches on Friday. The majority of participants lost their limbs to complications from infections or life-altering traumatic injuries, a shared experience that forged an immediate sense of community on and off the pitch.

Organized by the World Amputee Football Federation, the global governing body for the sport, in partnership with local Bolivian authorities and regional nonprofits, the camp brought in elite coaching expertise from across the globe, including seasoned players from the U.S. Women’s National Amputee Soccer Team. Under the official rules of seven-a-side amputee football, all participants must remove prosthetic limbs before kickoff. Athletes rely on crutches to move across the pitch, but are prohibited from using crutches to make contact with the ball, putting a premium on balance, coordination, and quick adaptive thinking. Over five days, coaches covered everything from fundamental crutch movement and core stability to advanced passing tactics and game strategy.

For 21-year-old U.S. national team player Amie Donathan, who was born with a single leg, the camp represented far more than just training. “The life of amputees can sometimes be hard, but we adapt really fast,” Donathan explained. “The way I feel about this camp, honestly, can’t be described.”

Men’s international amputee football has a decades-long history, with the first international matches taking place in the 1980s, and a World Cup tournament staged every four years. The sport has seen steady growth across regions affected by conflict and landmines, including Gaza and Rwanda, where it has become a source of healing and community for survivors. For women, however, the discipline has only recently begun to gain formal recognition and support. The first ever Women’s Amputee Football World Cup was held just last year in Colombia, where the host nation claimed the historic inaugural title. The 2027 edition in Poland will only be the second women’s world cup in the sport’s history, with organizers still finalizing details on the host city and exact match dates.

Lidia Mayser, president of Santa Cruz’s regional sports council, which is currently working to establish Bolivia’s first national women’s amputee football federation and qualify a team for the 2027 tournament, emphasized the transformative impact of the event. “It’s so that women with amputations can realize their dream through sports, through soccer,” Mayser said.

That transformation is already evident for participants like Filomena Luna, a 50-year-old mother of six who lost her leg at age 11 after an infection worsened when her family first sought treatment from a traditional healer instead of a medical professional. Luna never imagined she would be able to play competitive soccer, but the camp has helped her find belonging and joy she never expected. “This practicing and training has helped me improve tremendously,” Luna said. “Soccer is an escape for me.”

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – On the eve of one of the most anticipated FIFA World Cup finals in modern history, the global sports community converged on New York’s Fanatics Fest on Friday night for an unprecedented pre-tournament event that brought together some of the biggest names in global sports alongside the two finalist squads. The star-studded gathering, which deviated from traditional pre-final media formats, saw sporting icons from across disciplines join Argentina and Spain’s teams for a one-of-a-kind question-and-answer session that highlighted the magnitude of Sunday’s title match.

The lineup of sports royalty on stage left attendees awestruck: NFL legend Tom Brady, holder of more Super Bowl titles than any other player in history; men’s tennis Grand Slam record-holder Novak Djokovic; and Kevin Durant, the only men’s basketball player in history to claim four Olympic gold medals. By the end of the night, every elite athlete in attendance joined a group selfie with the player who has remained the center of attention throughout the tournament: Argentina captain Lionel Messi, widely regarded as the greatest men’s soccer player of all time.

FIFA made the unconventional choice to hold pre-final press activities at Fanatics Fest, a four-day fan-focused sports celebration packed with autograph sessions, celebrity activations and interactive exhibits. This decision gave hundreds of ordinary fans a rare up-close look at Messi and the two finalist teams, a level of access that is virtually unheard of in traditional closed media events ahead of major tournament finals. The event also deviated from standard press formats by swapping questions from traditional sports journalists for questions from the cross-sport legends in attendance.

Brady kicked off his questioning by asking Messi about a viral photo that has circulated across social media this week, showing a young Messi bathing a baby who grew up to become Spain’s breakout star Lamine Yamal. “What a crazy picture,” Messi responded. Djokovic followed by asking Argentina head coach Lionel Scaloni about managing pressure ahead of the biggest match of the tournament, before turning the same question to the Argentine captain, ending his question with a simple, gracious “Gracias, Leo.” Djokovic later asked Spain coach Luis de la Fuente and captain Rodri about maintaining composure in high-stakes matches, while Durant asked Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez what back-to-back World Cup glory would mean for the defending champions.

Spain captain Rodri opened up about Messi’s standing in the sport ahead of the match, saying, “It goes beyond words what Messi means as a player and what he means for Argentina. Obviously, for me, he’s the greatest of all times.”

Messi’s final public appearance before Sunday’s final came as Argentina enters the match as the only remaining undefeated and untied team in the tournament, with a 7-0-0 record, but their road to the final was far from smooth. The defending champions had to stage two dramatic second-half comebacks: erasing a 1-0 deficit to defeat England in the semifinals and overcoming a 2-0 gap to beat Egypt in the Round of 16. Argentina also was pushed to extra time by Cape Verde in the Round of 32 and Switzerland in the quarterfinals. “I’ve said many times: We never stop fighting,” Messi said.

Scaloni emphasized that the team is approaching the final like any other match to manage the immense pressure. “It’s one more game. We cannot really think about the fact that it’s a World Cup final,” he said. Spain, by contrast, enters the final with a 6-0-1 record after drawing its opening group stage match against Cape Verde. The Spanish side has spent years building its squad through multiple tournaments to reach this title decider.

When Messi walked onto the packed theater stage on Friday, most attendees erupted in cheers, many abandoning applause to hold up their phones to capture photos of the 8-time Ballon d’Or winner. Messi acknowledged the crowd with a smile and a wave, drawing an even louder roar from the audience. By the end of the event, the entire group of attendees – including the two national squads, comedian and actor Kevin Hart, rapper Travis Scott, England soccer legend Rio Ferdinand, and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin – gathered for a group selfie with the crowd of fans in the background.

Argentina is vying to make history on Sunday: no men’s national team has won consecutive World Cup titles since Brazil claimed back-to-back trophies in 1958 and 1962. For Messi, a win would add another unprecedented milestone to a career already filled with historic achievements. Martinez emphasized the team’s motivation heading into the match. “We’ve got a group of players and a group of coaches that are working incredibly hard every single day to try to bring happiness to my country,” he said. “We’re going to give absolutely our best, with Leo, with the team that we have, to bring the World Cup back to my country and celebrate with our people.”

Scaloni summed up the global anticipation for the match, saying, “Sunday is going to be a great show.” Organizers estimate that roughly 1.5 billion viewers around the world will tune in to watch Messi and Argentina face Spain for the World Cup title.