Symbol of its geography, a wedge between Brazil and Argentina, Uruguayan football wants to infiltrate again between the two giants of the continent in the Copa América 2024. Top winner of the competition along with the Albiceleste, with 15 titles, the challenge of the team Marcelo Bielsa is to take a step beyond his historical role, that of a contender or natural candidate for the decisive stages, and assume the role of favorite in the United States to become champion for the second time in this century, after his victory in Argentina 2011.
In charge of La Celeste since May 2023, the Argentine coach has already given his players the greatest of his virtues: the power of convincing. With an intense team and young players who commit themselves to the point of immolation for Bielsa’s idea, Uruguay is holding magnificent South American Qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup. At the end of the first six dates, played in the second half of 2023, and already waiting Since the resumption of qualifying in September, La Celeste is in second place, only behind Argentina.
If Uruguay should never be underestimated, this team also already has a proven recipe against the giants. Just as in October they beat Brazil in Montevideo – from which they lost an undefeated record of 37 matches in qualifying for the World Cups – and then defeated Argentina in Buenos Aires – the world champion who had only lost one match in the last 51, against Saudi Arabia in Qatar 2022–, Uruguay will try to transfer those results to the Copa América. The last friendly, on the 5th of this month already in the United States, fueled that hope: Bielsa’s team defeated Mexico 4-0 in Denver.
In silence, through a side door but with the support of its history, Uruguay will try to impose that good present on a possible decrease in competitive tension of an Argentina that has already reached Everest and the ups and downs of a Brazil in a state of confusion, to which The GPS works. The Celeste players do not assume this favoritism in public but they let good feelings emerge.
Reduced to pot 2 in the draw, Uruguay is not seeded but its group, C, does not seem like a hindrance either: it will debut against Panama on Sunday the 23rd, it will face Bolivia on Thursday the 27th – which it beat 3-0 in the last date of the Qualifiers – and will close against the local team, the United States, on Monday, July 1. The two qualifiers from their zone will face the best two from group D, made up of Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay and Costa Rica, in the quarterfinals.
Factory without chimneys, the Uruguayan miracle of producing top-level international soccer players, in a country in which decades pass but does not exceed 3,500,000 inhabitants, never ends. Finally, Bielsa called up Luis Suárez, the top scorer of the Uruguayan national team, now 37 years old and a teammate of Lionel Messi in the golden retirement of Inter Miami, for the Copa América. But in his fifth Copa América Suárez will have a place among the substitutes.
The Argentine coach opted for a renewal of the squad and dispensed with Edinson Cavani – the Celeste’s second top scorer – and Fernando Muslera – 133 international matches –, iconic surnames from the era of Oscar Washington Tabárez, the coach who led Uruguay in the last six Copa Américas, between 2007 and 2021. Diego Godín, the player with the most appearances in the national team –161, between 2005 and 2022–, retired a few days after Bielsa took office.
After his soulless time at Qatar 2022, when he did not score goals – during Diego Alonso’s brief cycle as Tabárez’s successor -, Darwin Núñez aspires to have his first great tournament with the Celeste: his three goals against Mexico a few days ago confirm his great present. If the 24-year-old English Liverpool scorer is one of the faces of the renewal in Uruguay’s attack, in defense Ronald Araújo, the 25-year-old Barcelona defender, will finally have minutes. However, nothing summarizes the new Celeste better than its midfield variants: Federico Valverde (Real Madrid, 25), Manuel Ugarte (Paris Saint Germain, 23) and Rodrigo Bentancur (Tottenham, 26). With much less name in the big football of Europe, but ideal for his game of explosion and physical intensity, Bielsa also bets as Darwin’s teammates in the attack on Agustín Canobbio (Athletico Paranaense, 25), Facundo Pellistri (Granada, 22), Cristian Olivera (Los Ángeles FC, 22) or Maximiliano Araújo (Toluca, 24).
Revered by his faithful or looked askance at by his detractors, but never indifferent, Bielsa’s great football start to his cycle – despite the elimination for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games – is complemented by rumors of a thick work environment at the Celeste Complex. , the place where the team trains. In recent months, according to the local press, several employees – including Carlos Nicola, Uruguay’s goalkeeper coach for 12 years – presented their resignation after alleged disagreements with the coach.
Just as Bielsa achieved the best version of his team at the end of 2023 and Uruguay travels to the United States as a silent candidate, for the 68-year-old coach, a victory in the Copa América would also be a reward for his career. And perhaps a revenge. Although he won the 2004 Olympic Qualifiers and the Athens Olympic Games that same year, when he led Argentina, in both cases they were under-23 teams, so the man from Rosario will go for his first senior international title.
With his country he directed two Copa América, in Paraguay 1999 – eliminated in the quarterfinals – and in Peru 2004, two decades ago, when he won the final until the last minute but ended up losing it to Brazil. The lyrics already say it Returnperhaps the most famous tango by Carlos Gardel, born in France but as Argentine as he is Uruguayan: “That 20 years is nothing.”
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