Grandees of Uruguayan football go head to head

Joseph Sexton

MANY have bemoaned the underperformance of the hosts and holders Argentina and Brazil in this year’s Copa América. It is right to draw attention to their failings, but to focus solely on their travails is to miss the real story, a story that’s been 15 years in the making. That is the incredible jump in standards across the continent since the current World Cup qualifying format was introduced ahead of the 1998 World Cup. Without that format there would be no Chile; and there certainly wouldn’t be a Venezuela who were for so long the San Marino of the region.

The narrow perspective also distracts from the excellent management of those sides who remain. If managers are occasionally wont to overstate their worth at times, one only needs to look at teams who fall short in this area to see their importance. It is unthinkable that both Brazil and Argentina would be out if they had an Oscar Tabárez (right) or a Sergio Markarián at the reins.

Those two grandees of Uruguayan football go head to head tonight in La Plata. Tabárez’s nickname the maestro may not be totally down to his former vocation as a schoolteacher, but tonight he will play the pupil. It’s almost 40 years now since Markarián entered the management business, and on that day he counted Tabárez amongst his playing staff.

His achievements in this first year with Peru have bordered upon miraculous; indeed, el mago- the wizard, the magician- is what the Peruvian press were calling him on Monday morning. When he took charge, Peru were in rag order.

Once a power in the region, they had finished bottom of the qualifying round for the World Cup, without claiming a single point on their travels. Key players were serving lengthy suspensions for disregarding a curfew under the previous regime. One got the sense that their European based players were fed up of the shenanigans of the Peruvian FA and merely going through the motions.

But Markarián’s long and itinerant career indicated he would not tolerate such gross mismanagement and ineptitude. His story has been one of success, of taking charge and achieving great things with unfancied sides. On the day he was unveiled last July he set out his ambitions for his new role. “I expect from my heart that this will my greatest work in my career as a coach”. It will be impossible to disagree that he hasn’t succeeded should they make the final.

The obstacles he has had to overcome in getting to this stage attest to this. First he had to instill some organisation and discipline into the set up. Then, on the eve of the tournament he lost his targetman, Claudio Pizarro. “We had a game plan in mind,” he sighed. “But without Claudio we’re going to have to come up with something totally different”.

To make matters worse, he subsequently lost Schalke wide man Jefferson Farfán to injury. And if that wasn’t enough, the two remaining stars at his disposal - Juan Manuel Vargas and Paolo Guerrero - both travelled carrying knocks. Both have recovered and gone on to excel.

We dealt with his anger at his media critics last week, who enraged him by labeling Peru as negative and defensive. When the final whistle went on their 2-0 extra-time victory over Colombia, he let it all out to a pitch-side camera. “¡Vamos carajo!”; “F**king get in there!”.

All bets are off in this tournament. The sky has turned green and the grass blue. The pitch at La Plata has been appalling in this new stadium, as we saw during the madcap penalty shootout between Paraguay and Brazil. Four games here have yielded a paltry three goals.

Little wonder that Tabárez was have nothing of his side’s tag as favourites going into this then. ”Let’s not talk about favourites, because we’ve got it wrong every time up until now. Every team left has a great chance of winning the title. Paraguay, Venezuela and Peru are not going to rest on their laurels now. Peru’s progress is there for all to see. We are not so arrogant to assume that we are better, or that victory will be easy”.

Away from the field of play, the 1994 World Cup hero and current Brazilian MP Romário waded into the debate on Brazil’s exit in a distinctly undiplomatic manner. “This Brazil selection is a pile of s**t”, he was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, top brass at the AFA quashed hopes that Sergio Batista might be relieved of his duties, with a sub-director noting that while “There were grave errors that cannot be repeated”, the federation remained confident in the man at the helm. One disgruntled commentator on TyC retorted “yet they’re already repeating themselves; the error is Sergio Batista”.

Tonight: Uruguay v Peru - Semi-final - 1:45am

@josephsbcn

 

 

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/e_eSAmIV5AY/post.aspx

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