in 1990 FIFA World Cup where Argentina reached the final match of the tournament. After the tournament, he retired from international career at the age of 30 after collecting 23 caps and scoring 1 goal for the Argentina national team. International goals Coaching career Early years Calderón began his managerial career in 1997 as head coach of Stade Malherbe Caen where he had played between 1992 and 1993. He was appointed as head coach of Lausanne Sports, another former club in 2003 but resigned after just five weeks due to poor results. Saudi Arabia national team Calderón then took over as the coach for the Saudi Arabia national football team at the end of 2004, and successfully guided the Saudi team to qualification for the Football World Cup 2006 in Germany by beating Uzbekistan 3–0 in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia was the only team in that qualification that lost no matches. Calderón said "Qualifying to the World Cup is the dream of every coach and I'm more than satisfied with our campaign in the qualifiers." "I'm very happy with the qualification since that was the goal I was aiming at when I first arrived in the Kingdom," he added. However, in December 2005, Calderón was fired by the Saudi Arabia Football Federation as they were dissatisfied by the team's poor showing in the 2005 West Asian Games after a defeat to Iraq, and was replaced by Marcos Paqueta. Oman national team On 9 April 2007, Calderón signed as the coach of the Oman national football team and led the team at the 2007 AFC Asian Cup. Oman began the tournament with a 1–1 draw with Australia but was defeated 0–2 against co-host Thailand, then made a 0–0 draw with the tournament's winner, Iraq and was eliminated in the Group Stage. On 30 June 2008, he resigned as head coach of Oman national team in order to become the new head coach of Saudi Al-Ittihad. Al-Ittihad On 30 June 2008, he returned to Saudi Arabia to become new Al-Ittihad head coach. In his first season at Al-Ittihad, he eventually won the Saudi Premier League by beating Al-Hilal 2–1 in the final match of the league played at King Fahad Stadium in Riyadh and finished the season in first place, five points ahead of runner-up, Al-Hilal. However, there was no success in the league, as Al-Ittihad were eliminated from the 2008 ACL and