While Jesse Marsch He hoped that a journalist would raise their hand to ask him one last question at the press conference, he spoke. She wanted to reinforce the idea she had stated seconds before. He had a choked annoyance: “Argentina should be fined. Okay? Fined. Write that down. They should have a fine for leaving twenty minutes late in the second half”. Thus, indignant, the Canadian coach finished his formal statement before the media an hour after his team lost 2 to 0 against Argentina in the Copa América premiere.
The question that triggered his reproach referred to what he had told his players at halftime. “I told them that we had to be more precise in tactics, that we had done things well, we had to be focused to know where we were standing at all times,” he said. Then he began his attack with a very singular argument, suggesting that Argentina took longer to better analyze the movements of their team: “When they were taking time, I knew they were watching the video and analyzing how they wanted to play against us. I wish the referees could manage that. If we arrived five minutes late, we would have a fine and there would be a big problem,” Marsch questioned.
“How long did they take? Twenty minutes? Thirty minutes? -she asked in an ironic tone-. They had time to prepare how they would play against us in the second half. If we had known we had ten more minutes, we would have prepared better. Beyond that, I made sure that my players knew that they were going to come up with a new plan and basically they rotated a little more to three, but we still solved it,” he stated in statements that were collected by the Reuters Agency.
Their complaint is that the first half ended at 9:52 p.m. in Argentina, an hour earlier at the Atlanta stadium. At 10:09 p.m., seventeen minutes later, television images showed Canada’s players positioned on the field of play. Two minutes later, the Argentine national team soccer players began their tour of the inner rings of the multisport stadium, a long walk that diners in the complex’s restaurants can enjoy thanks to glass walls. At 10:13 p.m., the Venezuelan referee Jesús Valenzuela whistled the start of the second half: the duel was then zero to zero. Twenty-one minutes of halftime had passed..
The Conmebol regulations, of course, has articles referring to the delay in the entry of teams with reference to possible disciplinary measures scheduled that begin in warnings, warnings either fines. It is true that the organization could raise the issue with the National Team with some warning not to repeat this delay, although surely from the side albiceleste They will be able to allege the enormous delay in getting from the field to the locker room. Mercedes-Benz Stadium and vice versa.
In addition to emphasizing his discontent with the attitude of the Argentine team, the fifty-year-old American coach criticized the referee’s performance. And he specified his regret in a specific play: at 70 minutes, Jacob Shaffelburg tried to dribble Lisandro Martínez at the door of the large area. The Argentine center-back crossed his right leg and the opponent fell. The contact existed. But both the referee and then the VAR dismissed the infraction that the entire Canadian bench claimed. “It must be said that it was a mistake. Later we can define if it was inside or outside the area, but it was 100% a foul. The reason why the referee did not charge it was because he was afraid that it would be a penalty,” he said with a smile on his face.
At the same time, he was also optimistic about his team’s performance despite the defeat: he said that they played better than he expected but that they made serious mistakes defensively and that to win this type of game you have to do it perfectly. . “I think we played a good game, especially when we were able to execute our tactical plan. We made it difficult for Argentina and we were able to score some goals; “We could have scored first,” he said.
He also spoke about Lionel Messi and what he had in mind for him in this continental competition debut: “We talked about being compact and identifying spaces in which Messi likes to appear. We talked about not getting into it head-on because it is difficult to beat him head-to-head. I’ve coached against him many times and he’s very good. The two goals he generated are world class”.
