Uruguay national team coach Oscar Tabarez has criticised the decision to hold the centenary edition of the Copa America.
Uruguay national team coach Oscar Tabarez has criticised the decision to hold the centenary edition of the Copa America.
The competition is regarded as one of the best in South American football, but it has never been held outside South America. 2016 will be the first time the trophy heads out of the South American shores. North America has been included as part of the competition with the likes of Mexico and the United States taking part. It significantly raises the bar, but Tabarez says that it does not feel like the Copa America. He is also not in agreement with the large amount of travelling involved throughout the tournament.
Since the United States is a vast country, players will have to frequently travel from one location to the other in heat conditions. This is not ideal for the game itself, according toTabarez. Uruguay won the competition in 2011 after a gap of almost two decades. Since then, however, they have only managed to reach the quarter-finals of the previous edition. For the 2016 centenary edition, the national team will be having a lot of hopes especially because forward Luis Suarez comes into the tournament on an excellent run of form. He has just been crowned as the top scorer in the La Liga by breaking the dominance of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
“It’s going to be played all over the United States, I don’t like it.The teams that reach the final will have been over the whole of the country – and it’s an impressively big country. Then there’s the heat there, which, on top of the distances to be travelled, increases the demands [on the players]. That’s why I don’t think it will be an ordinary Copa America. It’s a very special Copa America, although I wouldn’t call it a Copa America, for me the Copa America is something else,” saidTabarez.