Over 13,600km and 30 years separate the Argentinian city of Rafaela and Jor, nestled on the north coast of Qatar, in Gustavo Alfaro’s life story. After calling time on a fleeting career in the heart of Atletico de Rafaela’s midfield, Alfaro took his first steps in management in 1992 at his hometown club with one thing on his mind: to fulfil a series of pending dreams. Three decades on and after having accomplished all of his targets, the Santa Fe native is set to savour a moment as he prepares to lead Ecuador as coach at a FIFA World Cup. With 98 days to go until he makes his debut on football’s biggest stage, Alfaro sat down with FIFA+ to discuss the build-up to his Qatari adventure.Excerpts: When you started out in coaching, over 30 years ago now, your dream was to take charge of a club in Argentina’s top flight. Back then, could you ever have imagined you’d go on to coach a team at the FIFA World Cup?That was indeed very much a distant hope. I began on the very bottom rung in Rafaela, a city where there’s more passion for motor racing than football. My first task was to prove that I was capable of managing my hometown club and then working hard to try and do that in the top flight. That was my ultimate dream. I went on to work as a commentator for a Colombian TV channel at four editions of the World Cup. My first tournament was in Germany in 2006. That’s when the idea of coaching at a World Cup came to mind, but a voice in my head was telling me to just focus on coaching in Argentina and establishing myself in the top tier. My head and my heart were locked in a battle. That’s when I started to search without really searching, just like the Buddhists: you’re not looking for something, but that feeling of hope means that you end up playing around with an idea in your head.In the first World Cup you worked at, in which areas did you feel you were lacking in terms of actually coaching a team in the competition?I needed to go on and complete my coaching badges and establish myself. I didn’t have a coach to guide me. Everything was an uphill struggle for me. Although I was coaching at Quilmes Atletico Club at the age of 34, I had to do it all on my own. I met up with coaches and sought the magic formula that guarantees success and that’s how I shaped myself as a coach. I still had to establish my working methods and had to prepare myself for more demanding challenges. Although football is the same game wherever you go, the level of responsibility differs from one level to the next and the higher up the pyramid you go, the greater the pressure. After over two decades in club management, you were given the chance to coach Ecuador. Did you have to weigh up?It came in the middle of the pandemic and at a very tough time. I had left Boca Juniors and was seeking a challenge. There weren’t many teams in South America that could offer me that. Coaching Ecuador offered me something different and involved me becoming a national-team coach just 30 days before our opening World Cup qualifier. I believed that the challenge involved similar demands to those I was under at Boca, given the magnitude of the World Cup. It was all about getting our teeth into the challenge and making our mark on the project without altering the essence of Ecuadorian football, while at the same time introducing new elements to try and reverse the dynamic that resulted in Ecuador failing to qualify for the 2018 edition in Russia.Was it at that stage that you decided you needed to oversee a generational shift within the squad?The first thing we did was to analyse the team’s performances in the previous qualifier, the 2019 Copa America in Brazil, and the friendlies, as well as looking at the youngsters who were coming through. We felt that the team had reached the end of a cycle. Although there were a number of talented players and some good performances at the U-20 World Cup, many of those boys weren’t at big clubs or competing in major leagues. On the one hand, there was a certain level of uncertainty about assembling a new team but, at the same time, there was an excitement at the prospect of starting from scratch. Many players didn’t want to play for the national team. How do you go about persuading them?What you’ve mentioned was actually the cornerstone of the process. When I was appointed as Ecuador coach, I had 30 days to put a team together for our game against Argentina. I started to contact the players and found myself up against some who didn’t want to play for the national team. They didn’t feel part of things. That’s when the scale of the problem really hit home. No matter how good or bad your players are, you’ve got a real problem when those guys have lost all interest. There was no sense of belonging, which is the greatest feeling you can have as a footballer. That meant that we had to adopt a different process. It was all about putting a squad together, creating a group and then making them into a team. We needed something special to bring us together, something that was above the individual players and that was linked to representing the flag, crest and national anthem. We needed a greater cause to fight for. We needed to build a dream that was big enough to accommodate all 17 million Ecuadorians and get them to buy into it. When I was unveiled as national-team coach, I was told: “We’re placing the hopes of 17 million people in your hands, coach.” However, it wasn’t about their hopes, I’d been given the responsibility not to let a whole nation down.In that first press conference, you even spoke about the geographic and cultural divide in Ecuador and said that everyone had to get behind the team.I was asked where I’d be based and I replied that I’d be based in Ecuador. Because if I’d have said the mountains, the plains or in Cuenca, it’d have been synonymous with a particular stance. It was a case of uniting the country and not just convincing the players. We had a bigger task on our hands. The first time I spoke to the players, I showed them the national-team shirt and asked them what it was. They told me that it was the national-team shirt. I then asked them where the crest was and they told me that it was on the front of the shirt, on the left side. ‘On the front or back of the shirt?’ ‘On the front.’ ‘On which side?’ ‘On the left.’ ‘Where’s your heart?’ ‘On the left.’ ‘So if the crest is on the front of the shirt and on the left it means that it’s on the same side as your emotions.’ ‘What about your name, where is it?’ ‘On the back of the shirt.’ ‘What does that mean? The player who pulls this shirt on never comes before those emotions. If you’re able to understand what this shirt means, you’ll understand what the national team means.’ That was our starting point.In what ways have you, the group and the players matured?The journey was the key to everything. It was all about putting a squad together, creating a group and making us into a team. We made changes to the way we did things, but our beliefs and principles remained the same. We mustn’t forget the journey: the good times, the highs, the uncertainty, the tension and the lows, because everything we experienced along the way contributed to the outcome. We have to try and keep the flame burning and our challenge is to keep the momentum going beyond Qatar.What are your thoughts on each of your opponents?There are similarities between three of us. Qatar have some young players, but they’re not used to performing on the world stage and don’t have the experience of competing at this level, and the same can be said of both Ecuador and Senegal. Senegal are a very powerful and tough side, they’re the reigning African champions, but they don’t have a strong World Cup pedigree either. As for the Netherlands, they’ve got a very young squad with a lot of quality, but they’re a very young side. They’ve contested World Cup finals in the past, but have always fallen at the final hurdle and this new generation is aiming to put that right.Of the four teams, Qatar will head into the tournament in the best shape because they’ll have had more time to work together. They’re currently training together and playing friendlies. I certainly don’t expect to see a lack of chemistry from Qatar and they’ve got an advantage in that regard. The Netherlands are a different prospect because they seek to impose themselves through their possession-based game. However, I’ve told my players that we’ve already come up against Argentina and Brazil, who are both European-style teams with South American talent, and performed well against them. Who’s to say we aren’t capable of reproducing that level of performance against the Dutch? As for Senegal, it’s like looking in the mirror for us. They’re a powerful, quick, strong side who play as a tight unit and have attacking players who can make all the difference and bring something different to the table, but playing against Senegal is just like facing ourselves. How’d it be to be in the dugout after having watched the last four World Cup opening games from the commentary box?When I saw Ecuador versus Qatar come out of the draw, I said to myself, ‘Wow, the whole world will be watching that one’ and it’s a massive privilege. I told the boys that there’s a reason why it’s worked out as it has and we’re involved in the opening game after so many sacrifices and lots of suffering. It’s our reward, and that’s how we’ve got to treat the game and just go out and enjoy the privilege of being involved in the opening match at the World Cup. Having said that, it’ll be like a cup final for us because it’ll have a big bearing, both for ourselves and Qatar, on how the group pans out. We’ve got to take that level of enjoyment into the game, but also approach it with a sense of responsibility.
