It was December 2004.
Oxford United, winners of the 1986 League Cup, were on a bad run, having fallen from the second tier to the fourth since 1999, and were relegated in League Two when owner Firoz Kassam sacked Graham Rix.
Kassam, the club’s unpopular owner, invited unemployed manager Chris Turner to watch their 1-0 defeat to Swansea, and most people thought he was the new manager, including the Oxford Mail., external and some players.
But instead… “It was pretty strange,” said former U forward Basham. “Five or six guys came in, in a row. They all stood in front of us and none of them spoke a word of English, except for a translator.”
Goiran said that “all the players were wide-eyed and wondering ‘who are these guys?'”
Those guys were Díaz, coach Horacio Rodríguez, another coach Raúl Marcovich, Goiran, physical trainer Pablo Fernández, doctor Rafael Giulietti and translator Giuilliano Iacoppi.
But wait, how did it come to this? It all starts in Monaco, where Kassam and Goiran lived and where Díaz also had a house after having played for the club.
Kassam approached a friend of a friend, Goiran, who had worked as a football agent and consultant, to help him find a coach and the Monegasque suggested Díaz, who had left River Plate in 2002.
It was widely reported at the time that Diaz was not paid to coach Oxford, and Kassam said he had been “promised club shares in exchange for success”.
But Goiran, speaking 20 years later, says Kassam’s company, Firoka, but not the club, paid consulting fees to Diaz and Goiran in Monaco.
And the question that many have asked: why did a coach with five Argentine titles and the Copa Libertadores come to Oxford League Two?
Goiran says he was part of a project to reach the Premier League in five years, but after a bitter end, Díaz, who is now coach of Corinthians in Brazil, never worked in England or Europe again.
“When they first arrived there were big talks about refurbishing the stadium, putting a new stand behind the goal and taking us into the Premier League,” goalkeeper Tardif said.
