Argentine coaches key to Chilean renaissance
ByReuters
Updated 19/06/2014 at 17:16 GMT
It is hard to imagine now but until recently Chile were one of the weakest footballing nations in South America, plagued by indiscipline, rocked by scandal and with a record at big tournaments that can only be described as pathetic.
Aranguiz Pedro - Spain vs Chile - World Cup 2014 (AFP)
Image credit: AFP
Their opening victory in South Africa in 2010 was their first win at a World Cup in 48 years.
They have never won the South American regional tournament, the Copa America in 36 attempts dating back to 1916.
In the qualifying campaign for the 2002 World Cup, they finished bottom of the South American group with just three wins from 18 matches.
But as their performance against Spain in Wednesday's 2-0 victory at the Maracana showed, they are now one of the most exciting sides in the region, with big ambitions.
"We've beaten the world champions and we hope that will help us keep growing," their midfielder Arturo Vidal said. "We want to be a great team and we want to win the tournament."
The seeds of Chile's success were sown in 2007 after their failure to qualify for the World Cup in Germany.
That year, they took an Under-20 side to a tournament in Canada and surprised everyone by finishing third.
In their squad were some of the players who are now crucial to the senior side - Vidal, Alexis Sanchez, Gary Medel and Mauricio Isla.
In the same year, the Chileans appointed Argentine Marcelo Bielsa as coach.
Quirky, philosophical and introverted, Bielsa became a cult hero in Chile, and his influence on the team can still be seen today, in their frenetic pressing and sometimes reckless emphasis on attack.
He also addressed Chile's notorious indiscipline. The rowdy nights out that marred a trip to Dublin for a friendly in 2006 and their Copa America campaign in 2007 became things of the past.
"El Loco" guided Chile to a respectable second-round loss to Brazil at the 2010 World Cup and most Chileans wanted him to stay on.
But after wrangling within the football federation he quit to be replaced by his compatriot Claudio Borghi.
Borghi built on Bielsa's success at the 2011 Copa America before handing the reins to yet another Argentine, Jorge Sampaoli, who guided them to Brazil.
Sampaoli is a Bielsa disciple but has stamped his own mark on the side, bringing in new players like Eduardo Vargas and Charles Aranguiz, scorers of the two goals against Spain.
Chile have a solid goalkeeper in Claudio Bravo, who looks certain to join Barcelona next season and, in Sanchez, an extraordinary talent up front.
If they have a weakness, it is in the air. They are one of the smallest squads at the tournament.
But in Vargas they may have found what they sorely lacked in South Africa - an in-form striker.
Talk of the Chileans as world champions is perhaps far-fetched. There is every chance they will face Brazil again in the next round.
But in the space of four months they have beaten England at Wembley, outplayed the Germans in a friendly in Stuttgart and now knocked Spain out of the World Cup.
Not bad, for a team known formerly as boozers and losers.
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