| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Ricardo Antonio La Volpe Guarchoni | ||
| Date of birth | February 6, 1952 | ||
| Place of birth | Buenos Aires, Argentina | ||
| Height | 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) | ||
| Playing position | Goalkeeper | ||
| Club information | |||
| Current club | Banfield (manager) | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 1971–1975 | Banfield | 108 | (0) |
| 1975–1979 | San Lorenzo | 112 | (0) |
| 1979–1982 | Atlante | ||
| 1982–1983 | Oaxtepec | ||
| National team | |||
| 1975-1978 | Argentina | 8 | (0) |
| Teams managed | |||
| 1983–1984 | Oaxtepec | ||
| 1988–1989 | Atlante | ||
| 1989 | Guadalajara | ||
| 1990–1991 | Querétaro | ||
| 1991–1996 | Atlante | ||
| 1996 | América | ||
| 1997–2001 | Atlas | ||
| 2001–2002 | Toluca | ||
| 2002–2006 | Mexico | ||
| 2006 | Boca Juniors | ||
| 2007 | Vélez Sársfield | ||
| 2008 | Monterrey | ||
| 2009 | Atlas | ||
| 2010–2011 | Costa Rica | ||
| 2011– | Banfield | ||
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals). |
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Ricardo Antonio La Volpe Guarchoni, born February 6, 1952 in Buenos Aires, is an Argentine football manager. He is a former Argentine World Cup-winning goalkeeper and the former coach of the Mexican national team. He is known for his tactical flexibility during matches and abrasive manner, as well as chain smoking on the touchline. As a club manager, he won the Mexican league in the 1992-93 season with Atlante F.C. and with Toluca in the 2002 Apertura season. He is the current head coach of Banfield.
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In Argentina, La Volpe played for Club Atlético Banfield and San Lorenzo. In Mexico he played for Atlante F.C. and Oaxtepec. He won the 1978 FIFA World Cup with Argentina as the reserve goalkeeper.
La Volpe has been a coach in the Mexican Primera División for several years, coaching teams such as Puebla, Atlante F.C., Guadalajara, Querétaro FC, América, Atlas, and Toluca, and C.F. Monterrey. He has had mixed results, a reputation for attacking football and for bringing along young players. As a coach, he led Atlante F.C. to the 1992-1993 season Primera División Championship and formed exciting teams, reaching the finals with Atlas in 1999, and winning the Championship title with Toluca in 2002.
His results as coach of the Mexican national team were good, as the team defeated Brazil to win the 2003 CONCACAF Gold Cup and easily qualified for the 2006 World Cup and performed well at the 2005 Confederations Cup, defeating eventual champions Brazil at the group stage, and reaching the semifinals of the tournament. With these results, La Volpe got the Mexican squad to 4th place in the FIFA World rankings.
Also under his leadership at Copa América 2004, Mexico managed to historically defeat Argentina for the first time in years, something no other coach in recent history has done, but lost in the quarterfinals against Brazil and lost the quarterfinals at the 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cup to Colombia. His team was eliminated at the 2004 Olympic Games after losing to Korea during the group stage.
At the 2006 FIFA World Cup, during the group stage of the competition, he won one game (Iran), tied one (Angola) and lost one (Portugal), giving Mexico an unprecedented fourth consecutive qualification to the Round of 16 of the tournament before going out 1-2 in extra time to Argentina at that stage.
During Mexico's first game in the finals against Iran, La Volpe was seen chain-smoking in the dugout, leading to an official warning from FIFA that he was not allowed to smoke during a match. La Volpe responded by telling FIFA's executives that he would "rather give up football than smoking," although he later consented.[1]
He had constant clashes with the press, which pushed La Volpe to threaten several times to leave. Once he told journalists: "Get out of my face! You know nothing. Don't break my balls, you fucking idiots." The Guardian even named him Best Coach of the 2006 World Cup for his attitude.[2]
After almost beating Argentina during the round of 16, but losing nonetheless after a Maxi Rodríguez goal in extra time, La Volpe finished his term as manager of Mexico. He did not give a final report on the team's performance, for which he was criticized by the Mexican press.
After leaving the Mexican national team, he met with Boca Juniors officials on 24 July 2006. After several weeks of negotiation, it was agreed on 22 August that La Volpe would take over as Boca manager on 15 September, replacing Alfio Basile who had been selected to manage the Argentine national team.
La Volpe had a bumpy start with Boca Juniors, including a 3-1 loss against archi-rivals River Plate on October 8. On 12 October, Boca lost 3-1 to Uruguayan club Nacional on penalty kicks in the Copa Sudamericana, and so were out of the competition. Boca failed three times to claim the Apertura Championship in the final weeks of the season, and then lost a playoff against Estudiantes. Keeping his word that he would quit if he lost, La Volpe resigned after the match. Later that year he become the new Vélez Sársfield manager, but did not stay in the job long. After watching his team suffer bruising defeats by River Plate and Boca Juniors in the Apertura 2007, and his team in 10th place, he resigned as coach.
In 2008, Ricardo La Volpe returned to Mexico as manager of CF Monterrey. After several days of speculation, the decision was finally announced in the club's official website, as the replacement of former manager Isaac Mizrahi. He had a bumpy start, and didn't win until his fifth match. CF Monterrey finished the season in 8th place and had the league's leading goal scorer, Humberto Suazo. Monterrey's league would end in the semi-finals in which they were eliminated by Santos Laguna after an aggregate score of 3-3. Fans of Monterrey spoke highly of La Volpe for helping the team reach the playoffs again after two dismal seasons of not qualifying including a last place finish during the last tournament. In the Apertura 2008 the team would have a fairly good start, but completely fell apart towards the end of the tournament placing Monterrey in the bottom of the table, hence not qualifying to the playoffs . After the disappointing tournament, the team did not offer the money La Volpe was looking for and he decided to leave the team.
On January 28, 2009, Ricardo La Volpe signed, once again, with Club Atlas. Fans of the team had been yearning for him to come back to the squad in which many said he had his most success. The tournament wasn't successful with the team failing to qualify to the playoffs, finishing 13th. On 18 November 2009 the Argentine coach quit Club Atlas due to poor results, and was replaced by Carlos Ischia.[3][4]
On September 9, 2010, the former Atlas coach became the new manager of Costa Rica, replacing interim coach Rónald González. The Argentine has originally signed until July 2014, however, poor performance during the 2011 Gold Cup and 2011 Copa América, ended his contract prematurely on August 12th, 2011.[5]
| Team | Nat | From | To | Record | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | W | L | D | Win % | Highest Accomplishment | Playoff Appearances | |||||
| Oaxtepec | 1983 | 1985 | 71 | 17 | 30 | 24 | 23.94% | None | None | ||
| Atlante | 1988 | 1989 | 44 | 19 | 11 | 14 | 43.18% | Semi-Finals | 1 | ||
| Chivas | 1989 | 1989 | 14 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 14.28% | None | None | ||
| Queretaro | 1990 | 1991 | 38 | 8 | 16 | 14 | 21.05% | None | None | ||
| Atlante | 1991 | 1996 | 185 | 74 | 59 | 52 | 40% | League Title | 3 | ||
| America | 1996 | 1996 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 25% | None | None | ||
| Atlas1 | 1997 | 2001 | 173 | 76 | 52 | 45 | 44% | Finals | 8 | ||
| Toluca | 2001 | 2002 | 57 | 29 | 9 | 19 | 50.87% | Semi-Finals | 2 | ||
| Mexico | 2002 | 2006 | 71 | 38 | 17 | 16 | 53.5% | 2003 Gold Cup | 8 | ||
| Boca Juniors2 | 2006 | 2006 | 16 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 43.7% | Runner-Up | N/A | ||
| Velez3 | 2007 | 2007 | 28 | 12 | 11 | 5 | 42.8% | None | N/A | ||
| Monterrey | 2008 | 2008 | 38 | 12 | 13 | 13 | 31.57% | Semi-Finals | 1 | ||
| Atlas | 2009 | 2009 | 12 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 41.6% | N/A | N/A | ||
| Costa Rica | 2010 | 2011 | 17 | 4 | 8 | 5 | 41% | None | N/A | ||
| Career | 756 | 388 | 234 | 134 | 51.3% | 2003 Gold Cup | 23 | ||||
1Includes results from Copa Libertadores 2000
2Includes results from Copa Sudamericana 2006
3Includes results from Copa Libertadores 2007
Though he has been criticized by some, his influence is obvious in Mexican football. Fans of the teams Atlas, Toluca, and Atlante F.C. remember him fondly. His philosophy, style of play, and attitude is referred to as "Lavolpismo". Current coaches who have studied under and continue to use a modified version of his style of play and philosophy are referred to as "Lavolpistas". He has had his run-ins with players in the past, but many players refer to him as a great coach who holds a great relationship with his players.
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