Marcelo Bielsa reveals key to Uruguay knocking Brazil out of Copa America - as Dorival Jr pleads for time

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Uruguay’s diligence and resilience under pressure after going a man down against Brazil in Saturday’s Copa America quarter-final victory put the team’s distinctive character in the spotlight, coach Marcelo Bielsa said. Uruguay lost Nahitan Nandez to a red card on a VAR review, which reduced their side to 10 men for the final stages of the second half, but they shut shop and defended resolutely to take the match to penalties where they prevailed 4-2.

“Everything that happens, happens Uruguayan style, because the players are the ones that give their all to the team,” Bielsa told reporters.

“It was a match with very little goal opportunities, highly contested, very close, even with very little changes in possession. When we were one man down, we decided to dedicate ourselves to defending in our half.

“So holding on to that result as the Uruguayan team did shows the profile of Uruguayan football. And they were very calm in the penalty shootout that demands not only accuracy but also character.”

Bielsa’s teams are usually characterised by relentless attacking football and no team has scored more goals in the tournament than Uruguay, who netted nine times in the group stage.

But three straight clean sheets have also helped Uruguay book a semi-final against Colombia and Bielsa was quick to praise his squad’s mentality rather than take credit for their defensive record.

“I am a bit more drawn to the offensive than the defensive game, but in a match that was as tight as this one, we created one more opportunity than our opponent and we defended well,” Bielsa added.

“There was a Uruguayan coach that said that... I would learn how to defend on the pitch and that is true because Uruguay is very consistent in defence.

“They played against Mexico (in a friendly), USA and Brazil, and kept clean sheets. I do think that defensively, not because I achieved it but because the players are inherently good at defending, that they are very good at keeping a clean sheet.”

Brazil, meanwhile, are still a work in progress with a lot of room to grow and improve, coach Dorival Jr said as they shift their focus to the World Cup qualifiers.

Brazil had failed to impress at the tournament, drawing twice in the group stage while beating only Paraguay before their second straight quarter-final exit from a major tournament following the 2022 World Cup.

“We are undergoing a very important renovation or reinvention of this team. I have only coached this team for eight matches and this is a process that we have to go through,” Dorival said while taking “full responsibility” for their exit.

“We are aware of the difficulties we will come across throughout the path, but we now lost a match in the knockouts and that wasn’t what we expected.

“But I repeat, we have a lot of room to continue growing, evolving, improving and our main objective now is to qualify for the World Cup. Right now we are sixth in the (CONMEBOL) standings, we are not comfortable with that.”

Dorival, who took the national team job only in January, also praised Bielsa’s Uruguay, saying it was a team Brazil could aspire to be after the Argentine instilled his philosophy on the side.

“I think the Uruguayan national team has a pattern, a very well-defined pattern. They have been working for a long time together. They had some problems at first, they corrected them,” Dorival said.

“Now they are finding great results. I think we will achieve all that as well, not a doubt about it, but we need some time to make such corrections.

“We had some issues at the beginning of the tournament. I think we corrected plenty of mistakes... It is tough given the period of time that we had to work to try to speed up the process. I think we’ll have some more time in the future.”

Reuters