Osvaldo Ardiles

Who is Osvaldo Ardiles?

Osvaldo César Ardiles, often referred to in Britain as Ossie Ardiles, is a football manager, pundit and former midfielder who won the 1978 FIFA World Cup as part of the Argentine national team. He now runs his own football school in the UK called the Ossie Ardiles Soccer School.

A competitive and skilled midfielder, Ardiles became a cult hero in England, along with Glenn Hoddle and compatriot Ricardo Villa, as a player for Tottenham Hotspur. He left England for a period on loan as a result of the outbreak of the Falklands War in 1982, thus missing most of the 1982–83 English season.

As manager of Tottenham in the mid-1990s, he played several matches utilizing a formation that had five forwards, a formation that hadn't been used in English football since the 1950s.

In Ireland he has been a pundit for RTÉ Sport. In January 2012, newly promoted J. League Division 2 side Machida Zelvia appointed Ardiles as their manager.