The Lions were left without a chance to fight for medals in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The men’s field hockey team lost 3-2 to Germany, the current world champion, in a very hard-fought and spicy quarter-final duel. The defeat hurt them. And, although they have not admitted it, perhaps it even hurt them a little more because the winning team’s second goal was scored by Gonzalo Peillat, who was a figure of the light blue and white team that won gold in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and that since 2022 defends the colors of the German country. The defender celebrated the goal he scored from a penalty corner so hard that in a matter of seconds he became Argentina’s number one enemy on a cool Parisian night.
Social networks were filled with messages of hate and insults against Peillat, especially from the statements he gave after the game in an interview with Public TV in which he stated: “In the end it is my life, whoever likes it well And if you don’t like it, sorry, I don’t know… like Maradona said, keep sucking it.” Those words further fueled the anger that his celebrations had generated. Although in the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, the only one in this edition of the Olympic event that also hosted competitions a hundred years ago, the fire did not burn as hot.
The Argentines who were scattered around the stands were in charge of warming up the atmosphere. But to a certain extent, perhaps because when that biting phrase from the defender aired on television and went viral on the networks, there were only a few Germans left in the stadium.
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The former Los Leones player responded to the criticism he received after celebrating his goal for Germany against Argentina.
Yes, there were whistles and boos after Peillat’s effusive celebration, first with a little airplane and then with a clenched fist and a guttural scream. And some insults and shouts against the former member of the Lions, especially from the people who had been located behind the German bank. There was also an exchange of unfriendly glances with his former colleagues, with whom he did not even exchange words because the relationship between them no longer exists.
Peillat was key to winning world bronze in The Hague in 2014 and Olympic gold in 2016. tournaments in which he was the team’s top scorer. But tired of “the mismanagement and decisions of the Argentine Hockey Confederation” and the differences with Carlos Retegui, then coach of the national team, in March 2018 he stepped aside. A few months later, when Germán Orozco succeeded Chapa in office, he agreed to return. But in January 2019, he submitted his resignation again and there was no turning back. “We were carrying the same thing from the previous process, all things were managed by the players,” he explained at that time. The relationship with the other Lions was broken at that time.
In 2022, after obtaining a German passport, Peillat announced his decision to start playing for Germany. The duel that was played this Sunday within the framework of the Parisian Games was not the first that the 29-year-old player played against the Albiceleste team. He had already scored against him playing in the Pro League. Even in duplicate in May 2022, a few months after the transfer. Also at that moment, he shouted at them with gusto. But the Olympic Games have another arrival to the public and that effusive celebration – later enhanced by his words in that television interview – did not go down well with the Argentines, who turned it into a trend on the networks.
None of that storm had reached Paris as the day came to an end at the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium. After the game, the Argentinians, very hurt, preferred not to say much about the Peillat situation and the crazy shout of him scoring a goal, although some threw out a phrase that left something to think about.
“It’s not something that hurts me. It’s a decision he made. If it does him good and makes him happy, the truth is, I don’t have much to say. If he chose that and it’s fine…” Maico Casella slipped.
Lucas Martínez assured: “At this moment I have nothing to reflect on. I do the best I can for myself, to represent my club and my country. That’s what interests me. And then everyone does what they want.”
Agustín Mazzilli, who had signed that first resignation letter in 2018 along with Peillat, but later rejoined the squad, assured: “It seems to me that we as a country can have good or bad things, but the reflection is always to try to leave Argentina in the best place. If I had made a decision not to return, I would not have been able to fix or try to fix things from within. Sometimes we may think that things are done wrong from above, but I know that there are many fellow players and friends who suffer. day by day for wanting to lift the country, trying to reach a result.
And regarding the decision of his former teammate, he stated: “At the time I thought that we had thoughts in common with some decisions that did not have to do with anything managerial, but rather with some decision that Chapa (Retegui) had made at the time. For me, Chapa was and continues to be the best coach I had, beyond the fact that I did not share the decisions he made at the time. I think it is always being in the same place, always representing the same country. makes his decisions.”
The most direct was, without a doubt, Mariano Ronconi. The Argentine coach summed up his position with a simple phrase: “(Peillat) is just another German. I have nothing more to add.”
Without the arrogance or disrespect that he perhaps showed in the notes he made for television, Peillat went through the mixed zone at the close of a night of many nuances and chatted with the Argentine journalists.
“With the Olympic champions we cannot sit at a table. Mazzili, the team’s representative, cannot speak to me. That tells you a lot,” he said about the (non) relationship with his former teammates.
The defender assured that he is not surprised by the criticism he generates every time he plays against Argentina.
“Argentina is a country that is very fond of football, in which you are a traitor, you are a son of a bitch, everything is black or white… There is a lot of talk on social networks and here in the stadium too. The German staff and the IHF guy got into a fight with people who were back in the stands shouting all the time. I knew it was going to be like that.” he assured her.
Regarding what happened a few years ago in a tournament when he left the national team, he commented: “For me it is a closed chapter. When I spoke about it, I did it with an open heart and I didn’t expect people to support me, I knew it was going to be like that. Everyone is the owner of their life and has to make the decisions they have to make. I don’t want to go back too much to the past, but the decision was not easy at that moment. It wasn’t that from one day to the next I said ‘Yes, I’m going to. give up.’ I always hoped to say ‘Its going to change’. I tried to delay the decision to maintain hope. But it was never changed.”
And he added: “At that moment the team literally broke. We said, guys, let’s do this so that it can be changed. Guys who were next to me said yes, we’re all doing it together. Later when I went to say what was happening, I looked “Go back and I was alone. And they leave you only with leading players… That’s when I said the team broke. And when a team breaks, how can you represent a country that has a different ideology?”
Regarding the controversy over the effusive golf shout, he stated: “It’s a semi-football question. If I score a goal against Argentina, England, Australia, I’m going to shout at them in the same way because at the moment I decided to play for Germany , I decided to do it one hundred percent. When I played for Argentina I gave my best. At that time there was more, but I couldn’t give it because the situation didn’t work out, because the team was broken because there were players who at that time wanted to accommodate themselves. for being on a team and for having privileges. I never wanted to have them. If I had wanted them, I’m not arrogant, but who was going to kick me out of the team? I left because I wanted to change things. sad, yes. Did it hurt me at the time? It broke my heart. Because we were ten players who said we are going to change this and then I was alone.”
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