The Viceroy in Rome
"Bianchi is a god at Boca and he's a bit of an idiot at Roma, people consider him a bit of an idiot and that's incredible. Bianchi can have the same hierarchy as a Lippi or a Capello, we're talking about an absolute phenomenon", this is what Daniele De Rossi said about Carlos Bianchi. And this arises from the Viceroy's (his nickname, "El Virrey" in Spanish) time at Roma in the 1996-97 season. Before and after that time in the Italian capital, Bianchi won everything, however, in De Rossi's former team things happened that led many Roma fans to hold the successful Argentine manager in such low esteem.
Bianchi before Roma
The Viceroy is well known for his successes as a manager, however, before that stage, he was an outstanding striker who scored many goals throughout his career. He made his professional debut in 1967 with Velez Sarsfield, a team with which he has always been closely linked. After six seasons, in which he scored more than 100 goals, he packed his bags to go to France, where he would play for Reims, Paris Saint-Germain and Strasbourg, scoring more than 200 goals in his 7 years on French soil.Afterwards, he would return to Argentina and his beloved Velez, where he would once again continue scoring goals to the point of becoming the club's all-time top scorer. In 1984, he would sign for Reims to play one more season in France and retire from football as a player and immediately begin his stage as a manager at the same Reims. After three good years, he went to coach Nice where he managed to avoid relegation with the club that was in serious sporting problems at that time.
Despite this, he decided to leave the team on the French Riviera to take a position as director of football at Paris FC. He would stay there for 2 years and then return to Velez. His tenure as coach of the blue and white club lasted 3 years and was the most successful in the history of the club, being crowned champions in Argentina 3 times, winning the Copa Libertadores, the Inter-American Cup and the Intercontinental Cup against Capello's AC Milan.
Arrival in Rome
Bianchi gained considerable fame in the world of football thanks to his international successes with Velez, especially in Italy, where his victory over Milan left a mark on many people, including Franco Sensi, president of Roma in the 90s, who in 1996 decided to hire Bianchi to replace Carlo Mazzone as manager of the capital team. Roma was in an inconsequential phase where it was not able to achieve success while in contrast, its big local rival, Lazio, was fighting for the Serie A trophy every season. Roma needed a shock and that was the Argentine manager, considering that he had the label of winner and that the Roman team came from a fifth place in the league.That season, players with mixed fortunes arrived as signings at the club; Damiano Tommasi, from Verona, would play for Roma for 10 years, while Roberto Trotta, an Argentine defender who came from Velez (captain of the team managed by Bianchi), would only stay for six months, as would Martin Dahlin, a Swedish striker who came from Borussia Monchengladbach, a club to which he would return just six months after his arrival in Italy. As for departures, the most notable was that of Roma legend Giuseppe Giannini, who after many twists and turns over the last couple of seasons, decided to leave the capital to sign for Sturm Graz in Austria. Bianchi was not directly linked to Giannini's departure, however, he was associated with it and this did not please Roma fans.
Roma started the season playing the second round of the Coppa Italia against Cesena, where they lost 3-1 and were eliminated from the tournament. This first image did not help the Viceroy who then chained three victories and a draw in the first five Serie A matches. In October they played the second round of the UEFA Cup against Karlsruhe of Germany, losing in the first leg by 3-0, a result that left them out of the competition despite having won the second leg by 2-1. By the end of October, Roma had already been eliminated from two of the three competitions in which they participated.
Francesco Totti
The end of the viceroyalty
With that scenario against him, on 7 April 1997, Bianchi was fired by Roma and replaced by a legend of the club's coaching staff, Nils Liedholm, the last manager to win Serie A with Roma. When the Argentinian left the club, they were not even safe from relegation to Serie B, but had only secured their survival a few days before the end of the championship. Bianchi managed 31 matches for the Roma club, with 12 wins, 9 draws and 10 losses, a clear demonstration of the irregularity that characterised his entire time in the Italian capital.Trotta, who was at Velez and Roma with Bianchi, explained that "Carlos did not do well because he was stubborn or because of his way of being. Carlos did not impose things on you, but he wanted you to do what he really wanted and Italian football at that time was very complicated. They did not accept a game that was different from what they were used to." And he also added that "one of the problems was with Santella (fitness coach). He was killing us. I was used to it, but one day the 30 of us on the team were running and four of us finished. They left, they didn't care about anything. They looked at Santella and said 'I'm leaving'. The Italian had never run 12 kilometers, and the coach wanted them to run 14."
Despite this more than complicated stage that Bianchi had in Italy, the Viceroy would return to Argentina, specifically to Boca Juniors, where he would manage to win 4 local tournaments, 3 Libertadores Cups and two Intercontinental Cups, in his two stages at the xeneize club.