Daniel Passarella
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Daniel Alberto Passarella (born May 25, 1953 in Buenos Aires) is a former Argentine football defender and now manager.
He started his career at the club Sarmiento de Junín, whence he joined River Plate, and then Fiorentina. After a successful spell in Serie A, he returned to River Plate, the scene of earlier triumphs, where his playing days finally ended.
He was addressed "El gran Capitan" (the big captain) or "Kaiser" because of his leadership, and strong will within the field. He was also an extremely offensive player, which turned him into the defender who scored most goals in football history by the time, with a stunning record of 134 goals scored in 451 matches. His record was then surpassed by Dutch defender Ronald Koeman, making Passarella the 2nd Top Scorer.
One of the pillars and capitan of the Argentine national team, he was an important piece on the held-in-Argentina 1978 World Cup's championship. On a side note, he was the first Argentine player to ever hold the World Cup, as it was handed to him first on the 1978 World Cup's winning ceremony. During the qualifying rounds of the also afterwards obtained 1986 World Cup that was held in Mexico, Passarella scored in Argentina's last chance of qualification, the goal which meant victory against Perú.
His rivalry with Diego Maradona, made the national team to be divided internally, but an injury made Passarella miss the 1986 World Cup. It is always wondered if the Argentine national team would have succeeded, have he not been injured. Despite the injury he was a part of the summoned national team members, and that makes him the only player that has been on both Argentina's World Cup titles.
Following his retirement from playing football, he gained employment at the club, and served as coach at River Plate, winning several titles.
Subsequently, he was the coach of the Argentine national team, and was in charge in their participation in both the qualifying games and the tournament matches of the 1998 World Cup in France. Argentina's games were widely criticized in the Argentine national press and he left his post after a last-minute 1-2 defeat against the Netherlands in the World Cup's quarterfinals.
He then became coach of Uruguay, whom he left during the qualifying games for the 2002 World Cup held in Japan and Korea, after having problems summoning players from Uruguayan football teams.
In 2003, he won the Mexican football league title with the team CF Monterrey. In March 2004, he was named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers. He recently was hired as coach of Corinthians, but was fired after a few months, after the team went through a string of terrible results.
Links
IFFHS Top Division Goal Scorer Ranking among the defensive Players (http://www.iffhs.de/main/ranking/welttorschuetzedef/?sprache=englisch)es:Daniel Passarella sv:Daniel Passarella