It’s fair to say that there’s never been a more remarkable ‘third-place playoff pre-match press conference’ than the one we just witnessed in Charlotte, North Carolina.
On Saturday night, Uruguay will meet Canada in a battle for Copa America’s consolation prize. The real show, though, came on Friday — when Uruguay head coach Marcelo Bielsa went on an absolutely scathing rant about the tournament itself, most notably about its lack of security and the deplorable condition of its pitches. He didn’t stop there, even turning his ire on the United States itself.
Bielsa’s standout performance was then followed by an encore by Canada boss Jesse Marsch. A bit less intense than the rant from ‘El Loco’, Marsch’s criticisms felt like the perfect denouement, perhaps the harshest criticisms levelled against a tournament that has been widely scrutinized since its opening match.
The handful of journalists in attendance were treated to something unique: a pre-match press conference almost entirely bereft of meaningless platitudes and reserved statements. Both managers were almost inviting CONMEBOL, the tournament’s organizer, to fine them. They’ll probably get their wish.
Both managers, though, made some excellent points, and many fans and observers will agree. The tournament’s pitches have been small and poor in quality. The officiating, especially in the knockout round, has sometimes been questionable. CONMEBOL has struggled to drown all of this out, despite its best efforts. And all the while, football-starved Americans have continued to line up and buy tickets, with some tickets for the final topping $2,000. It is a bizarre juxtaposition.
On Friday, things started off inauspiciously enough, with Bielsa fielding a run-of-the-mill question about squad rotation — particularly the lack of minutes he’s given to Uruguayan legend Luis Suarez, who has rarely appeared across Uruguay’s five Copa America matches. Bielsa, legendary for his intensity and attention to detail, gave a typically thoughtful, honest answer, going as far as to admit that he should’ve approached things differently.
But nobody in the room was there to ask El Loco, who once said that he’d never lose “if my players weren’t human”, about squad rotation.
The press conference was being held mere days after several Uruguay’s players entered the seating area at Bank of America Stadium to clash with fans. The Uruguayan players say that they did so to defend their families. Women and children were ushered onto the playing field by players themselves after the melee.
In the aftermath, reports out of Argentina have suggested that up to 10 Uruguay players may face some level of discipline for their role in the altercation. So a reporter for Uruguayan radio outlet Sport 890, then, asked a simple enough question:
“These last 24 hours have been consumed by everything that happened after the game against Colombia,” he asked. “Are you worried about what happened given the possible sanctions your team is facing?”
The notoriously blunt Bielsa immediately made it clear he felt the reporter had misstepped. The Uruguay coach’s voice trembled. He struggled to contain his disgust as he began to offer his answer.
“I said something the other day,” Bielsa said, staring intently at the media member. “I said that media members shouldn’t ask anybody any questions when they already have enough evidence in front of them to draw their own conclusions… so, how can someone ask me if I have fear about the sanctions that are coming when the only logic that applies in this situation is that mothers, with babies in their hands, women, sisters, were attacked by the spectators?”
Marcelo Bielsa did not mince his words during Saturday’s press conference (Omar Vega/Getty Images)
Press conferences like these are sometimes about pre-existing relationships and trust, and the trust between a head coach and a journalist can sometimes be fractured by something as simple as asking the correct question in the incorrect way.
If Bielsa had simply been asked to expand on his feelings about the incident, this reporter may not have faced the inevitable shitstorm that the Argentinian threw at him. In Bielsa’s eyes, though, the journalist had reduced a very human issue to a sporting one. Bielsa, widely known as a hardline, principled head coach, was not about to let that slide.
“The only thing I can tell you is that the players reacted however any other human being would,” Bielsa said, his voice getting louder and louder. “(If you see) your woman or your mother or a baby are being attacked, what would you do? You’d ask whether they’re going to punish the people who defended themselves?”
It was clear, at this point, that Bielsa cared little about getting fined and even less about what anyone in the room thought.
“I don’t know who you are and I don’t know any of you,” he said, motioning to the journalists in the room. “But you know that there are certain percentages of journalists who don’t attack certain things because it’s not convenient for them financially. Yes? Am I lying? You don’t want to say it because of corporate interests. I have to say it.”
Many in the crowd were not about to be called corporate cronies, more or less, and a half-dozen or so Uruguayan journalists began loudly objecting to Bielsa’s comment. It was a remarkable, rarely-seen exchange, especially in the sometimes staid world of British and American football.
The Argentinian wasn’t suggesting that every journalist operates that way but the reporter he directed the answer to was so mortified that he got up and left the room.
Others joined in: “No sabes de lo que estás hablando,” one journalist said. “No es justo.” — ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. This isn’t fair.’
Bielsa did not care, telling anybody in attendance that certain journalists “respond to interests, the ones that administer power and give out money”.
Uruguay players clashed with supporters following their semi-final loss to Colombia on Wednesday (Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
You could almost feel Bielsa’s rage building in the room. You could basically see him cross over the line where he stopped caring about how his comments would be perceived and if there was any doubt over his conviction, he eliminated it by saying he’d “already said all of the stuff I told (the tournament organizers) I wouldn’t say”. He laid into the playing field, the officiating, all of it.
“I’m tired,” said Bielsa, who began banging the table to add more weight to his words. “All of this has to do with all of these unfair things, over and over again, that you accumulate. They say the referees are fine, the pitches are fine, and all of these lies. They do press conferences to say, ‘No, the field is fine’, and you see the pitches are awful, and then they say, ‘No, the training fields are fine too’, and then you see Bolivia not even training. I have all the photos that show that it’s all a lie.
“This is a plague of liars,” said Bielsa, drifting into Shakespearian or maybe even biblical territory.
A press officer from the Uruguayan federation, at this point, tried to throw Bielsa a lifeline by ending the press conference early. Remarkably, Bielsa waved him off and fielded another question. We should be thankful.
Bielsa doubled down on his security complaints, stating that the United States should be more than capable of handling the tournament. “Put this in air quotes, this is the ‘country of safety’, yes?” He brought up the so-called ‘FIFAgate’, the U.S.-led investigation that led to the fall of former FIFA boss Sepp Blatter and a host of other administrators at football’s global governing body. In the same breath, he seemed to absolve the Americans a bit. “The North Americans don’t say that you’re going to get a perfect pitch,” said Bielsa. “They tell you, ‘We’ll install you a field three days ago, or X amount of days ago’.”
Bielsa’s press conference dragged on for some 45 minutes, much longer than a typical ‘matchday minus-one’ affair would typically go.
Within minutes of his departure, the internet was alight with his comments. In an era full of carefully measured statements, Bielsa’s unfiltered commentary felt like a salve to football fans across the globe.
Before long, Canada head coach Marsch had gotten a taste of Bielsa’s remarks as well, watching on his cell phone. Marsch, who took the Canada job in May, earned a reputation as a hard-nosed defender during his distinguished career in Major League Soccer. His coaching career in the United States and Europe alike has also demonstrated his capacity for blunt, honest talk.
His Canada side have faced their own adversity: what they perceive as sub-par refereeing and a series of disgusting instances of racial abuse aimed at their players. On Friday evening, in front of only a handful of reporters, Marsch — like Bielsa — seemed like he’d had enough.
“I saw some of Marcelo’s comments,” said the former Red Bull Salzburg coach. “…for me, this tournament has not been professional.
“There are too many gaps in the treatment, the overall experience from a day-to-day perspective. I watched what happened after the Uruguay vs Colombia match and certainly, I didn’t know all the details — I’m certain we wouldn’t want anyone’s families or any player’s families to be put in harm’s way.
“I know if our team would have responded like this, there would be heavy sanctions because of the treatment we received in this tournament the whole time. We’ve had our players headbutted, we’ve had racial slurs thrown at our players, live and through social media. And not just the situation with Moise Bombito but throughout the entire tournament, from opponent’s fanbases, live or on social media. We’ve been treated like second-class citizens.”
Canada head coach Jesse Marsch said that his team had been ‘treated like second-class citizens’ (Omar Vega/Getty Images)
Marsch, who went on to express pride in his players for how they’ve handled said adversity, was not done. His comments quite understandably lacked the all-out anger that Bielsa’s displayed but the tone and delivery of his statements said quite a bit.
“We’ve often been accused — by the opposing coach before the matches are played, to the referees — that we cross the line, we’re overly aggressive,” said Marsch. “And yet, if you look at the CONCACAF teams and the treatment that they get in games, the yellow cards per foul rate is way higher for every CONCACAF team. I watched the Uruguay-U.S. game and it was one of the most biased-reffed games against the United States that I’ve ever seen, on their home soil.”
Marsch has been feeling his oats a bit these days and deservingly so. Rebuffed for the USMNT job a couple of years back, Canada now stand as the only North American team remaining in the competition. The man U.S. Soccer chose over him, Gregg Berhalter, is out of a job after being sacked last week. Marsch wouldn’t bite when asked what he thought of that dismissal.
“I hope they find the right guy,” he said. It felt a little pointed.
Third-place matches are generally viewed as throwaways, a little free soccer at best and a shameless cash-grab by organizers at worst. That logic may have applied to this encounter too but after witnessing a pair of the tournament’s most compelling managers ether the tournament organizers — and anybody else they could find — tomorrow’s matchup between Canada and Uruguay feels much more meaningful.
Not that either manager even talked about the game in the press conference.
(Top photos: Canada head coach Jesse Marsch, left, and Uruguay head coach Marcelo Bielsa; Getty Images)
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