Luis Suarez A huge bomb detonated this Thursday. The experienced Uruguayan striker launched harsh criticism in relation to the internal management of the coach of his country’s national team, Rosario Marcelo Bielsa. “The players are going to reach a limit that they are going to exploit,” warned the all-time top scorer of the Uruguayan representative, a few days after one month of his retirement with that shirt.
“The harmony of the squad is brought about by the group and the training. Good energy and good vibes lead you to compete well. But if there is not, because one trains at one time and another at another, it is complicated,” mentioned Lionel Messi’s current teammate at Inter Miami, in statements to DSports.
In that sense, he added: “Normally you know when you are a starter or a substitute, but so far away like this, the difference was big. That was respectable and you took it with you, but they are opinions that I felt at that time.”
Suárez It did not have the prominence of other times in the last Copa América won by Argentina in the United States. But neither had it during Bielsa’s cycle, which began in May 2023.
In this context, the “Pistolero”, who was called up for the first time by Bielsa only last November, decided to leave the Uruguayan team after the 0-0 draw with Paraguay at the Centenario stadium in Montevideo, for the World Cup Qualifiers. 2026.
Anyway, The football level was not the main axis of his annoyance with the Argentine coachbut also other operations in the privacy of the campus. “My last call, you were playing tricks and you saw them passing by and looking to see who was playing. There are things that catch my attention“, revealed.
“(Before) you would go to the complex and we would be having dinner or having a snack and you would see televisions everywhere showing football. Nowadays there is a hidden one behind, and everything is off and silent”, he compared.
And he added: “It’s like you say where I’m going. TO It broke my heart to enter the complex. The classmates get self-conscious, they are afraid to shout with the music. What was being experienced is complicated and I don’t know who will be qualified to raise their voice because it is difficult.”
A couple of witness cases of the confusion that he said he went through with the Rosario coach were generated during the Copa América. The first of them was when before a game “Loco” decided that the starters would train in one place and the substitutes in the hotel.
The remaining one occurred when the Uruguayan delegation returned to its hotel in New York. “300-400 people were waiting for us. And before getting off the bus the teacher told us ‘Marcelo says don’t stop with the people, keep going straight‘. As a captain deep down I told him ‘how, teacher? And out of respect for the people, we all stopped and were with the people.”
“The next day we had a talk in which the coach started talking about how the Uruguayan competes and is this or that, and said that he plays ‘for the people.’ “There we all look at each other,” he said, and confessed that Some teammates told him that “they were playing the Copa América and they weren’t playing anymore.” for Uruguay.
Suárez highlighted, in parallel, that his relationship with Bielsa during their coexistence in the national team was only “professional.” And he mentioned the only time they were face to face: it was when the players they asked the coachalways according to his story, that at least he would greet them.
🗣️”I HAD A REFERENCE TALK WITH HIM FOR 5 MINUTES AND HE ONLY SAID TO ME: THANK YOU VERY MUCH”
➡️ Lucho Suárez on the team’s lack of communication with Marcelo Bielsa.#DFSHAUY pic.twitter.com/QzMWlyRPls
— DSPORTS (@DSports) October 4, 2024
“I didn’t know him and the first days of the Copa América, in preparation, there was a talk about him with the squad, in which some players asked him to at least say ‘good day’ to them. In the talk, as captain at that time, I spoke with him and I wanted to explain to him that we were in the same boat,” he said.
And he added: “I talked to him, I sat in frontI spoke to him looking at his face for five or six minutes, telling him that we supported him, He looked at me and said ‘thank you very much, Luis’. I got up and left. He didn’t answer me anything. “I didn’t get any answer.”
“There I accepted that I had to stay silent at all times and respect what he said until I continued my path and made a decision about what I was going to do with the national team,” stated the author of 69 goals in 143 games with the light blue shirt, the one he wore in the World Cups. in 2010 (he was 4th) and 2014, and in five Copa América, including 2011, which Uruguay won in Argentina.
The 37-year-old goalscorer also indicated that “sometimes it is easy to talk and for people to hear what they want to hear, but sometimes they are not the true stories.” “That hurts me. It hurts me what is happening today“, he confessed, while saying that historical collaborators of the team are even prevented from going through the dining room when the players are there.
“In football We all know that he is not one to deal with supposed leaders or experienced players.. He doesn’t like it. So I preferred to avoid some things because I didn’t want to be a participant in any problems. I implied some things, but it was preferable to remain silent to avoid some friction and out of respect for the team,” he concluded.
A few days after his retirement, a conversation between Bielsa and the former Liverpool and Barcelona footballer himself was revealed, which would have been the trigger for his retirement from La Celeste.
According to a journalistic version, Suárez’s decision was accelerated by not having the certainty of being called up for the qualifying dates that remained until the end of this year.