It happened on January 25, just four and a half months ago, but the football calendar has a voracious pace. It was during the presentation of the reinforcements, three days before the game against Unión. As if it were a politician, Gustavo Costas stirred up the light blue and white mass. And her harangue gave way to a thunderous applause.
“Today we can compete, today we have to go for something big, because you want it, because we want it, and we have to demand ourselves. I set my bar very high, they will say. He who knows me well, he knows what I am and I always tell the truth. For me, it was easier to say ‘let’s see, a lot of players came, let’s put together the team…’ No, from the first day, as I told my players, ‘from Saturday, the finals start and the finals are not played, they are won“.
Costas is not a congressman, it is clear. He has been a Racing fan since he was born., He was the mascot of José’s team, fulfilled the boy’s dream of wearing the colors of the club of his loves and was even champion of an international tournament (the 1988 Super Cup), that dream that has been pursued for seven decades. This is his third stage leading the team and, for the first time, he will have no room for excuses, beyond the fact that he will never – and the coach himself says this – hide behind them.
He led the bankruptcy team, when they had to ask Judge Gorostegui for permission to be able to play. He took charge of the team in the second – and worst – stage of management, when Blanquiceleste SA was beginning to collapse. For 17 years he waited for a new opportunity. President Víctor Blanco, after many musings, finally agreed to repatriate the prodigal son who had triumphed abroad, but had never been a prophet in the bank of Mozart and Corbatta.
Costas was finally able to direct a very different version of the Racing that he knew. Institutionally and economically healthy, with a squad rich in quantity and quality of players and even had the pleasure of choosing from a portfolio of options. There was a great success: Maravilla Martínez scored 16 goals. The technician, in that sense, may beat his chest.
However, Costas became a slave to his own words. He set the bar high for himself and is failing to meet those expectations. Then, that aura of emblem with which he arrived begins to fade due to the failures and failures of his team.
If he set out to win two of the four titles of the season, he is already much more challenged because he has two tournaments left to play. He was left out of the quarterfinals of the League Cup, despite the final sprint, and was eliminated from the Argentine Cup by Talleres de Remedios de Escalada, a rival of the Primera Nacional. That’s why you no longer have any margin for error.
The defeat against Bragantino leaves him forced to beat Coquimbo and Luqueño in the Cilindro and he has four dates, before the break for the Copa América, to right the course in a championship that started with a result that is difficult to digest. Racing beat Belgrano 4 to 1 and tied 4 to 4 with three goals conceded in just eight minutes.
Until this paragraph the game was not talked about. In short, it seems to matter little if “the finals are won.” However, What does Racing de Costas propose? The team has an offensive vocation, but the blow by blow needs a strong entry hand or it will inevitably end on the canvas. It is true that he won more games (11) than he lost (7) and that the percentage of points obtained (56%) is above average. Also, he scored 41 goals (average of one goal per game). However, he had many unevennesses. AND He could never win a game that he started losing. Sunday was no exception.
The identity is diffuse. At times, it is direct. At other times, he accumulates too many passes. He has strong forwards, but There is a lack of continuity in the development of the game and suffers from defensive disconnections. Not everything is Costas’ responsibility, of course. He is not to blame for Ignacio Galván’s pass that led to Franco Jara’s third goal, but it was the coach who decided to bring him on. He made too many changes when the game was on.
The fan’s fuse is very short. And just as Fernando Gago was criticized, especially for that 2022 in which he was the protagonist (he added 80 points), but he was left out of the League Cup, the Sudamericana, the Argentine Cup and the title escaped him on the last date for the missed penalty by Jonathan Galván (yes, another Galván), the same applies to Costas. The demand that he himself asked of the people, the one that Gustavo himself – who also knew how to be in the stands – would demand of another coach. Because, ultimately, the shield is above the names. So, the change must be profound, rapid or the technician’s horizon will be too short for a relationship with so much history.