In his harsh defense after the battle of Charlotte, when Uruguayan players and leaders clashed with Colombian fans in the stands of the “Bank of America Stadium”, Marcelo Bielsa He charged at a woman, without naming her. “The head of the playing fields,” she slipped in. The woman has a first and last name: she is the Brazilian Maristela Kuhnagricultural engineer at Conmebol.
“They held press conferences to say that the fields were perfect, as were the training fields. “This is a plague of liars,” said Bielsa.. And she added: “You can’t continue deceiving yourself that the fields are good. The field manager, who I know who he is and how bad his job ishe held a conference to lie.”
Maristela Kuhn graduated from the Phytotechnics degree at the Federal University of Río Grande del Sur. On her own website, she claims to have taken specialization courses in the United States and Germany.
He also highlights that he provides assistance to several Serie A football teams, and extends his knowledge of grass to polo fields, golf, rugby, tennis and “other grass sports.”
She works as an agronomist engineer at the Brazilian Football Confederation and was the coordinator of the sports fields for the organizing committee of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. She explains that for that World Cup, she was “responsible for monitoring all the lawns in the stadiums and training centers.” training”. She also worked for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games committee.
Another of his jobs was the preparation of the Monumental stadium in Lima (Peru) for the first single-match final, the one in which Flamengo beat River 2 to 1.
In this Copa América it was not necessary to be a specialist to notice the poor condition of the playing fields, the lines of grass in stadiums where until days before the Copa América there were sporting events of other disciplines and even recitals.
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Bielsa exploded at the press conference after the scandal of the Uruguay players who fought with the Colombian fans.
And Bielsa got angry: “These are all known mistakes! The Americans don’t tell you ‘I’ll give you a perfect pitch’, they tell you that they gave you one installed three days ago and that the joints in the grass don’t close. The training camps were a disaster. Bolivia did not train, but of course, it is Bolivia. The penalty to Brazil, all the injustices. But with the lower class of the competition, nothing. So now the referees accused by the same federation saying that they did not charge Brazil a penalty when there are 50 thousand knowing that this conditions… You already know all this, man.”
The press conference to which Bielsa alluded, against the Conmebol engineer
A day after Argentina defeated Peru 2-0 on the last date of Group A, the owners of the Hard Rock Stadium raised the grass for a concert by Colombian reggaeton artist Feid and are expected to put new grass for the final.
In this context, Kunh gave a press conference that Bielsa described as a liar. “We hope it is in excellent condition. The same conditions it was in for the first game,” said Maristela Kuhn on July 1.
That day, Kunh and Conmebol officials told The Associated Press that there were no reasons for these complaints and that they were rather due to an aesthetic perception of the players due to how the grass looked visually. In some parts you could see the ends of the grass buns attached to the sides, but there were no differences in level, they said.
After their first game against Canada in Atlanta, some Argentina players complained about the surface. “Aesthetics can give a wrong perception”said Frederico Nantes, Conmebol competitions director. He explained that tests were conducted before and after the game to evaluate the field and how the ball moved and hit, and noted that they all had good results.
In the second game held in Atlanta, the joints of the grass slabs were no longer visible and, as the visuals improved, no one talked about the stadium, Kuhn assessed.
Conmebol said that the Hard Rock is the only stadium where changes to the grass are planned, although they were already planned before the tournament started because the concert was already known. The stadium is used to these types of changes, Khun added.