I was delighted to see Jeff Bridges win an Oscar for best actor. But I did wish that the award could be given retrospectively. Instead of his performance in a movie about country music (which, to be fair, I haven't seen), I would prefer to see him honoured for his contribution to 'The Big Lebowski,' a decade old Coen Brothers comedy.

Bridges plays 'The Dude,' a befuddled left over from the days of student radicalism stumbling amiably around early 90s Los Angeles. Undoubtedly lazy - any more laid back and he'd be horizontal - his slacker act is carried off with a cool charm that makes him one of the most endearing heroes of cinema history. I can't get enough of him.

Top-level sport, of course, is not a natural habitat for such figures - though Brazil's Socrates had a good try some three decades ago. With his languid elegance, un-athletic lifestyle and libertarian principles at a time when his country was ruled by a military dictatorship, Socrates was a slimmed down version of 'The Dude' in soccer boots.

Since then, though, the sport has entered the age of hyper-professionalism, with ever more scientific methods of physical preparation and an exhausting treadmill of matches to get through. There is little room for this type of maverick in today's game.

Martino is no slacker

But if there is no space for the slacker, it is still possible to combine a career in top class soccer with an admirable cool - as Paraguay's Argentine coach Gerardo Martino is demonstrating.

Coaches are usually most un-Dudelike figures. It can be a lonely job, and a high pressure one, with increasingly limited job security. Such circumstances are not usually guaranteed to show off the human being at his best. Coaches can be wary and egotistical, always ready to blame others for their woes. Their predecessor is often an easy target. Like an incoming government, a coach can blame the previous administration for spending all the money, buying badly and generally making his job more difficult.

Not Martino. In some comfort, sealing their place with two rounds to spare, he has guided Paraguay to their fourth consecutive World Cup - a remarkable achievement for an impoverished country with a population of little more than six million.

Time to start crowing? No - time to pay tribute to his predecessor.

"The most valuable qualification was that of Mano Ruiz (the veteran Uruguayan who took the team to Germany 2006)," Martino said. "He inherited the end of the great generation of the World Cups of 1998 and 2002. And this new generation, which is also brilliant, was just starting to come through."

Martino, then, believes that his task has been eased by the skill with which Ruiz handled the generational change. Armed with this, when he took over in 2007, Martino wanted to lead the cavalry charge. His big idea was to get Paraguay playing higher up the pitch, taking the initiative and putting the opposition under pressure.

In his first competitive match in charge, Paraguay beat Colombia 5-0 in the 2007 Copa America in Venezuela. There was no note of triumph about Martino in the post-match press conference. In fact he was not particularly happy. It had been a counter-attacking triumph, with the Colombians picked off on the break. This was not what he wanted.

"We didn't spend much time against Colombia in the zone of the pitch that I intended," he said. "We spent more time closer to our goal than that of our opponent. For this reason, the 5-0 score line is deceptive."

Playing on the counter and sitting back

The evidence soon came that Martino was trying to go too far, too fast. His desire to get the team forward clashed with the traditional Paraguayan strength of deep defence, and the result was a 6-0 defeat to Mexico in the quarter-finals of that Copa America.

Wiser and more pragmatic, Martino had a rethink, and built a team capable of playing both ways. Against weaker opponents they could push up, and against stronger they would sit back and hit on the counter. They were the sensation of South America's World Cup qualifiers, taking the lead after four rounds and holding it until the 13th, eventually qualifying in comfortable third, just a point behind top team Brazil.

Yet again Martino was reluctant to receive the laurels.

"I have to recognise that in the qualifiers our results have been more consistent than our level of performance," he said. "The great strength of the Paraguay team is its collective game. And the credit for this does not belong to me - it's a natural characteristic of Paraguayan teams and players."

Only a coach who is very sure of himself can be so generous with the laurels of victory. And there is nothing quite so cool as someone with this degree of self-assurance. Gerardo Martino, then, is 'The Dude' of the global game. And if he manages to take Paraguay to the quarter-finals for the first time in South Africa then he will deserve an Oscar of his own.