Gonzalo Quesada will be Italy’s first Argentine rugby coach

After the World Cup scheduled for next September/October in France, the new blue coach will be Gonzalo Quesada, 49 years old, former opener of the Argentine national team (38 caps) and of the Stade Francais of which he was also coach repeatedly from 2013 to a few days ago. Passionate about polo and tennis, he is the first Argentine to sit on the blue bench and replaces the New Zealander Kieran Crowley, who will end his experience in Italy after two years after the big French appointment.

The love story between federal president Innocenti and Crowley, initially identified as the right man to restart and re-found Italian rugby, had already exhausted itself at the beginning of the year, after success in Wales in Cardiff in 2022 in the Six Nations and the historic victory in Florence with Australia, but also the beating with Georgia in Batumi.

Crowley with the English media had criticized the dismantling of the training system of the academies (wanted by Innocenti) and attacked the referee after the home defeat against Wales, all exits that had not been appreciated by Innocenti. Furthermore, before the last Six Nations, President Fir had indicated ‘two victories’ as the goal of the national team, while Kieran had argued that it was also possible to lose all the matches (which duly happened). Innocenti has denied that among the reasons for the dismissal of the New Zealand coach there is also the failure to call up Sergio Parisse for the World Cup, an argument that has however created further friction. Crowley, who launched Cannone, Garbisi, Menoncello, Lamaro in the national team – in short, the backbone of the national team of the future – would have liked a renewal until 2027, to continue work in the long term, but the federal leaders were of a different opinion, from here the early divorce (the first unwanted by a foreign coach in Italy).

Quesada, who as a coach won a Scudetto in France in 2017 when Sergio Parisse was the captain of the Stade Francais, while as a player at the 1999 World Cup he was the best scorer of the tournament (102 points), will have the task of completing a job left in half.