Scaloni to Face His Teacher De la Fuente in World Cup Final

Spain eliminated France, and Argentina overcame England, setting the stage for a perfect World Cup final scenario: the European champions versus the South American world champions, pitting a teacher against his student, reports Reuters. Luis de la Fuente's Spain will aim to secure a second World Cup title for the country, 16 years after their first in South Africa, while Lionel Scaloni's Argentina seeks to become the first nation since Brazil in 1962 to win back-to-back World Cups.

The two managers know each other from the Royal Spanish Football Federation's (RFEF) coaching academy in Las Rozas, where De la Fuente was an instructor and Scaloni was one of his students. This was back in 2017, two years after Scaloni had ended his playing career. De la Fuente, then in charge of Spain's youth teams, was among the figures who helped the recently retired player take his first steps into coaching. Neither could have imagined that the lessons from Las Rozas would one day echo all the way to a World Cup final. Scaloni holds fond memories of that period and his relationship with De la Fuente.

"Luis was a huge help to those of us who took the coaching course in Las Rozas. I've spoken with him and I wish him all the best," Scaloni said before Argentina's victory over Ecuador in the Copa América quarter-finals. The admiration is not one-sided. De la Fuente describes Scaloni as a master—an unusual description for a former student, but fitting for the man who led Argentina to both world and continental success. Both coaches have lifted their respective continental trophies, and now they meet again, not in a classroom, but in a battle for football's greatest prize.