There are not many people in world football who command the respect of Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni, but 91-year-old broadcaster Macaya is one of them. Scaloni stopped to pose for a photograph with the veteran journalist after his news conference ahead of Argentina’s group-stage match with Jordan.
It is easy to understand the reverence. Macaya has covered 18 consecutive World Cups — a run that stretches all the way back to Sweden 1958, when he was just 24 years old and a 17-year-old Pele was announcing himself to the world. One of his first assignments was to watch Pele’s Brazil face Austria, but his earliest and most lasting memory from that tournament is Argentina’s 6-1 defeat by Czechoslovakia. “It remains etched in my memory as a tremendous thrashing for the Argentine national football team,” he says. “We knew almost nothing about Czechoslovakia. We had no information, no data, and they surprised us.”
In the nearly seven decades since, Macaya has watched football transform beyond recognition. He has reported on Pele, Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, witnessed television go digital and statistics become instantaneous, and seen the World Cup grow into a global spectacle.
Through it all, one quality has defined his work: a refusal to rush to judgement. That philosophy was tested when Scaloni was unexpectedly appointed Argentina manager in 2018. “I didn’t have high hopes,” admits Macaya, who works as a commentator on DSPORTS Radio. “I didn’t know him.”
Image credit: BBC Sport / BBC Sport
