Marcelo Loffreda sits in the Buenos Aires office of Argentina's rugby union surrounded by the glory he is to leave behind: mementos from Pumas victories, photos of rookie proteges blossoming into greatness, newspaper headlines proclaiming him a rugby messiah.
That is history now. Tomorrow, the Argentinian coach will pack his bags, drive through this sun-kissed capital city he calls home and fly to an uncertain future of cold, dark, provincial nights on the far side of the Atlantic. He cannot wait. "I'm very happy," he said, beaming. "It's a new challenge. A great honour. When they offered it to me, I had no doubts."
Loffreda has been appointed Leicester's director of rugby and it is a remarkable leap, not least because it is his first professional job in the sport. As coach of Argentina, which clings to amateurism, the civil engineer was paid only expenses.
The appointment marks another milestone in Argentina's emergence as a rugby power following its triumphs in scalping France, Ireland and Scotland to reach the World Cup semi-finals. Loffreda, the architect of that campaign, has stepped down as the Pumas' coach to take the place of the Australian Pat Howard.
"I begin immediately," he said. "Our first match is the following weekend. I will have to learn fast, very fast." Is the Heineken Cup the season's main objective? "Well, it is the only championship which escaped Leicester [last year], so it would be nice."
A charismatic Latin coach taking charge of a top English club amid high expectations has a Chelsea-style ring to it. But Loffreda, affable and down-to-earth, is not calling himself special and is not promising revolution. "I will modify some things but my intention is not to impose a vision which is different from the club's. I'm not going to destroy anything. I hope I'm going to add to what is already there." He will certainly do that if he manages to lure Juan Martín Hernández to the Tigers.
Most of Loffreda's 44 caps were as a centre but during nearly eight years as national coach he has added a ferocious hunger to win to the Pumas' famous scrum and maul. With most of the top players scattered across clubs in Europe, he had very little time to forge team cohesion before big games. Yet forge he did. "We worked a lot on mental preparation. Team talks, one-to-ones, showing videos. It's not just what you say, it's how you say it. Sometimes I talk fast, other times slowly. If I'm asking a team to be controlled, I need to be controlled and not angry or shouting."
Word has it he can shout when necessary. When his boys were playing like mangy kittens against Wales in a World Cup warm-up, Loffreda said something at half-time that turned them back into roaring Pumas and almost salvaged the match. What did he say? Loffreda laughs and turns coy. "That is very personal."
Buenos Aires is famous for having more psychiatrists than New York but Loffreda's mental skills are not Freudian. A former captain and sales manager, he is a natural communicator. Occasionally, he interrupts his Spanish to ask in English: "Do you understand what I mean?"
Loffreda was on holiday with his family on an Argentinian beach last January when Leicester phoned and invited him for an interview. Intrigued, the 48-year-old flew over for two days of talks with board members. "They asked about my career as a player and my background as a coach but mostly they wanted to know about my vision for the club."
His answer was tight-knit cohesion and passion, not just among players but also the trainers, groundskeepers, administrators, bottle-washers - everybody connected to Tigers. That's how he worked with the San Isidro club, just north of Buenos Aires, and with the Pumas. "It's about enormous enthusiasm for the game and also the jersey you wear. Leicester have that philosophy."
South Africa's coach of the time, Jake White, was in the running, as were three unnamed candidates from England, Scotland and Wales. Loffreda was back at the beach a few days later when Leicester phoned offering a 2½-year contract to June 2010. Before saying yes, Loffreda consulted his wife, his 20-year-old son and his four adolescent daughters. They will follow in December, by which time he hopes to have found a house, braced for a European winter. "The climate is the one thing we'll miss from Argentina. A new culture, a new civilisation, it's a big move, but we're looking forward to it. It's exciting. You understand what I mean?"
