After a lengthy stint with Peru in which he impressively steered the country back to the FIFA World Cup for the first time in 36 years and was on the verge of repeating the feat four years later, Ricardo Gareca obviously has a blueprint for success.
The Argentinian coach, straightforward, pragmatic and a little spontaneous, took up the reins of the Chile national team in January. Although he has only overseen three games so far, the man known as El Tigre in his playing days appears to have swiftly got the underperforming side back on the right track, providing a coherent gameplan and clear direction.
La Roja’s immediate focus is the 2024 Copa America, but towards the end of the year they will also have to negotiate the next instalment of qualifiers for the FIFA World Cup 2026; they currently sit on just five points and find themselves in eighth position in the 10-team table.
Against this backdrop, one of Gareca’s first moves was to pinpoint his key men, and Alexis Sanchez was one of the first names that sprang to mind.
Now 35, the talented front man, who just won the Serie A title with Inter Milan but is now looking for a new club, has been handed a leading role for Chile, who will cross swords with Peru, Canada and Argentina at the Copa America, hosted in the United States.
Between the 2010 World Cup and 2016, Chilean football enjoyed a hugely successful period, under the tutelage of Marcelo Bielsa, Claudio Borghi and Jorge Sampaoli. They qualified for South Africa 2010, where they were knocked out by Brazil in the round of 16, and Brazil 2014, where the same opponents defeated them at the same stage, and won back-to-back Copa America titles in 2015 and 2016, after twice beating Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the final.
Led by a renowned golden generation that featured players such as Claudio Bravo, Gary Medel, Mauricio Isla, Arturo Vidal, Marcelo Diaz and Sanchez himself, the team scaled such heights that when they fell and the time came to determine which direction Chilean football should take next, the evaluation failed to produce a result: they were absent from Russia 2018 and from Qatar 2022.
In November 2023, Argentinian tactician Eduardo Berizzo stepped down after a series of poor results. Gareca came in and made a quick choice: Medel (now at Boca Juniors) and Vidal (Colo Colo) were omitted from the squad, while Bravo and Sanchez were retained, maintaining a link with the team that were twice crowned continental champions.
In the recent 3-0 friendly win over Paraguay, Sanchez donned the captain’s armband for the second half after Bravo was substituted – a sign of what he represents for the team today. As soon as his tenure began, Gareca stressed the need for the Chile attacker to play a key role at Inter, although his coach at club level, Simone Inzaghi, tended to prefer the pairing of Lautaro Martinez and Marcus Thuram up front.
“I’ll stick with Alexis, who’s a star; I think he’s still capable of stringing together strong performances, as he showed at Marseille,” said the 66-year-old South American at the time. “At Inter he has become an important player, but he doesn’t have the continuity he’s looking for. He’s at a stage where he can do what he wants, let him be happy. What’s done is done – he’s already had a brilliant career.”
On the pitch, Sanchez has played in every attacking position during his career. In the early days, he was a left-sided forward who would drift into the right so as to make the most of his powerful shooting ability. Within Sampaoli’s two-time Copa America winners, he had a free role supporting Eduardo Vargas, sometimes through the middle and sometimes on the wing, but with Jorge Valdivia as the principal playmaker. He would rampage down both flanks and look for the best opportunities along the front line. At Marseille, he was an old-school centre-forward.
And now, in this new era, the former Barcelona man has shown himself to be more organisational, more central, more of a decision-maker.
In the three encounters played under Gareca so far (a 3-0 win over Albania, a 3-2 loss to France and the aforementioned victory over Paraguay), Chile opted for a 4-2-3-1 formation with a double pivot – Flamengo’s Erick Pulgar and Norwich’s Marcelino Nunez – and two men out wide almost playing as wingers but dropping back when not on the ball, mainly CSKA Moscow’s Victor Davila on the right, and either Dario Osorio (Midtjylland) or Diego Valdes (Club America) on the left.
Sanchez was positioned just in front of them, looking for space in behind the opposition midfield, with complete freedom to drop back in search of the ball or to slot in as a second striker alongside Vargas.
“I’m very happy with the team, especially with the intensity we’re showing,” said Sanchez. “We all drop off when we don’t have the ball and that’s important. To play in a tournament like the Copa America, you have to have that intensity.”
Gareca added, clarifying the new role: “The more he does what he does best and the less fatigue he has, the more he will logically get out of it and the more the national team will benefit from it.”
In the match against Paraguay, Sanchez came across as a footballer who has thoroughly matured: he appears to have reached a point where he meets the needs of a team going through a rebuilding phase: he creates time and space, distributes where necessary and finishes with aplomb.
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