Luis Suarez harshly criticized Bielsa: “What is happening in the Uruguayan national team hurts me.”

Luis Suarez expressed his strong criticism of coach Marcelo Bielsa’s management of the Uruguay national team in human terms, and said that the members of La Celeste do not enjoy being part of the national team.

The Inter Miami striker, who retired from playing with La Celeste after the match against Paraguay in the South American qualifiers, said that his relationship with Bielsa is “only professional” and that his farewell was affected by the bad atmosphere that Uruguay created internally, as he expressed it during an interview with the program. “You talk about football like that” (Directv).

El Pistolero explained that the complaints against Bielsa are due to the humanitarian aspect and the relationship between him and the players and officials of the Uruguayan Celeste complex. “When it comes to making decisions as a coach, about who plays, who you call, take what you want, but this is Uruguay. For many years, those of us who have lived together since 2007 have worked hard for the complex to grow and get what it is today, and from The sad thing is that you can’t enjoy it all. You see players go and not enjoy it. You see that they have fun in their teams, they smile, they don’t do that in the national team, they don’t enjoy it. Suarez commented: “What the national team is going through hurts me, and there are colleagues who will not come out and say that, and this is understandable.”

He added that officials are not allowed to contact players outside the scope of their mission, and that both Ignacio Alonso, president of the Uruguayan Football Association, and Jorge Giordano, coach of the national teams, were aware of the matter. The annoyance of football players. “It pains me to say it, but Alonso and Giordano allowed it. “They were the ones who gave him that authority to have that relationship with the employees,” he noted.

Suarez explained that in the days of coexistence during the Copa America there were many situations that generated friction, one of which was, The team asked Bielsa to “at least say good morning”. “I already had an argument there with Agustín Canobbio. As captain at the time, I told them I would speak to the coach. I told Giordano I wanted to speak to Bielsa to tell him we were all in the same boat. I sat down in front of him, talked for about five minutes, told him that we supported him, that we respected his decisions… He looked at me and said: Thank you very much, Luis. I got up and left. He didn’t answer me anything after five minutes of talking.. I didn’t get any response. From then on I accepted that I had to remain silent at all times and respect what he said until I continued on my path and made a decision about what I would do in the national team. No Celeste.

Suarez said the attitude of Canobbio, who did not appear again in the Uruguay squad after expressing his anger in the last match in the Copa America, was due to the fact that the Atletico Paranaense striker “felt belittled.” Although the narrative was put forward that it was because Bielsa used Canobbio as a ball-keeper in training, Pistolero explained that this was not the case, but that he made him do what his sparring partners do. “There were three U-20 sparring partners, and Agustín asked him to take the passes that the sparring partners made during the half of the cup, and have them do the moves that the players had to do. You cannot field a player among the 26 called up for the cup as if he were a partner In the sparring, this bothers me, I understand Agus in this and pointed out that he retreated a little and it is normal for him to reach this situation. In turn, Suarez reported that it happened in the tournament that the substitutes who did not participate minutes after the match trained only with the physical coach, without even. That one of Bielsa’s aides monitor their movements.

Another situation that the striker mentioned in detail was the one that Darwin Nunez suffered at halftime of the match against Argentina in La Bombonera, after receiving some criticism from Bielsa. “I saw Darwin crying and I told him: You are here because of your merit, and what you work for. You are a scorer and you are the best.. You have to keep going like this, and forget what others say. Wash your face, go out and break it.” That’s why when he scored the goal, I was the first to receive it. For me, Darwin needs affection, support and containment, not much else. I ran into the coach in the hallway and he said, ‘We don’t help him with this stuff.’ I was surprised and told him I should support him. After the win, Bielsa greeted me and said: Do you know what is happening? If I didn’t talk to him like that… I saw what happened in the second half. “I told him that my role was to contain him.”

Suarez also said that all this did not harm the team’s unity among themselves, but “on the contrary, it made it stronger.” “Two ends [Nández] “You’re lucky that you have a very good group of people and the team is united,” he told me. Another event that led to unity among the footballers occurred, according to Suarez, when one of Bielsa’s aides asked them not to greet the Uruguayan fans present at the entrance to the hotel in a US city during the Copa America. “I stood on the bus and said: As a captain, out of gratitude to the people, we all stopped, guys, and did it.” The next day, the coach talked about how the Uruguayan competes and plays for the people… We looked at each other as if to say: What? “About people if you ask us not to say hello? It’s easy to talk and for people to hear what they want to hear, but it’s not really the stories and that hurts me a lot.”

Regarding his decision to retire from the national team, an action also taken by others such as Edinson Cavani, Diego Godin, Fernando Muslera or… Matthias VicinoThe gunslinger said that he spoke with Cavani and that they agreed to see what they experienced at this stage. He also referred to Vicino’s situation and said that although he had not spoken to him, he also believed he was coming from that side. “For a 29 or 30 year old player, making this decision is because he has reached the point of feeling ignored and belittled.. “It should not be surprising that there may be more cases,” he said.

When asked why he decided to talk about this matter now, he said that he wanted to express himself but did not find the time to do so, but Bielsa’s words about him in his last conference shocked him. The coach spoke highly of Pistolero’s game and ability, and Suarez said he was stunned by the fact he had never sent him anything similar.