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Behind the rebirth of this country of South America, which France faces Friday in the quarter-finals, hides a former teacher who built his speech on strong moral values.
When the notes of Oriental, the Patria o la tumba the Uruguayan anthem, will sound in the stadium of Nizhny Novgorod (Russia), Friday, July 6, Oscar Tabarez, the coach of the Celeste, will get up. He will need some help. Leaning on his crutches, he will hum the air, surrounded by his staff. At the whistle of the referee, he will sit on his bench, and let his eleven players fend off against the Tricolores Didier Deschamps in this quarter-final of the long-awaited World Cup. He has confidence in them. The plan has been running smoothly for twelve years.
"When he arrived at the end of 2005, Uruguayan football was K.-O. debout" tells franceinfo Jérôme Lecigne, Uruguayan football specialist on the website Lucarne Opposée . Uruguay was eliminated by Australia in the 2006 World Cup qualifier. The federation is on the verge of bankruptcy, the coaches are changing every year and the presidents have judges on the bad for corruption ( link in English) . "Tabarez did not accept the position unless he could reorganize the work of the selection of the youngest to Team A", says the specialist. Stuck, the president of the federation of the time accepts it. Tabarez is the last resort. It's been four years since he stopped training, "to think" after a brilliant career that brought him to the bench of AC Milan and, already once, of the national team between 1988 and 1990. Since his departure, Uruguay has missed almost all international competitions.
You said field of ruins? It's below reality. Take the composition of the first list of Tabarez. "I go to the headquarters of the federation, and I discover that they do not even have the phone numbers of the players.It was necessary to go to the premises of the channel that broadcasts the matches to be able to join them" remembers the technician. The following is the same cask. "During our first training, we were not numerous enough, some players were delayed in their planes tells the middle Diego Scotti in the book Maestro: el legado de Tabarez . We had to ask some fans to put on the crampons to make the number. "
When he was not yet a full-time trainer, Tabarez was a primary school teacher (link in Spanish) . And to hear his biographer Luis Inzaurralde, contacted by franceinfo, managing blond heads and soccer players, it's (almost) the same thing: "At that age, it's not so much the geography or the maths that children are taught, but the respect, the rules of community life, everything that makes us fit for the rest of our lives.The players have a relationship close to that of teacher to student with him. " Ask Diego Forlan (19459005) Technical leader of the selection in the early years of the Tabarez era …
He is inflexible on good manners. No mud on the shoes, no question of leaving the plates hanging out in the refectory or putting his feet on the chairs. Diego Forlan on the Wall Street Journal
For Tabarez, sports refoundation goes along with moral refoundation. "He managed to return to the true values of Uruguayan football, which was the reference until 1950 [avec deux titres olympiques et deux titres de champions du monde, pour un pays de 3 millions d’habitants] : respect, adherence to values, the commitment of all players for the Celeste" believes Luis Inzaurralde .
Luis Suarez is crowned best player of the 2011 Copa America? His replacement Sebastian Abreu, who played only a handful of minutes without flinching, ironically saying that he deserves the trophy of the best substitute. Players have free quarters one night? Tabarez finds them in front of the TV watching a match under 17 Uruguayans instead of being released in nightclubs, tells the magazine specialized The Blizzard (in English) . Each new player in the selection must read a book dedicated to Obdulio Varela, legendary footballer of the middle of the century. Nicknamed El Negro Jefe ("the black leader"), he had preferred to console Brazilian fans instead of celebrating success at the World Cup in Maracana, in 1950. Some, like the former PSG player Diego Lugano, have made their bedside book, says Lucarne Opposée
When we talk about the true values of Uruguayan football comes the image of a fighting spirit tenfold, even a team of butchers. Nothing more wrong. The Uruguay team is leading the fair play ranking of this World Cup, with an unfortunate card collected in four games. The equation is based on a subtle blend of technique, with players like Forlan a few years ago or Bentancur in the current eleven, and garra charrua ("the charrua claw"), named after an Amerindian people: "This fighting spirit is cultural illustrates Jérôme Lecigne Learn to play very young, in small neighborhood stadiums, fight for each ball by giving everything, putting head where some would not set foot. " The philosophy of Tabarez could be summed up in this phrase of Che inscribed on a wall of his house in Montevideo: "It is necessary to be hardened without ever departing from its tenderness."
On paper, it sounds simple. But what to face in the case of Luis Suarez, suspended four months for having planted his incisors in the arm of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini at the 2014 World Cup? Tabarez does not compromise. This penalty spewing all the case law for this kind of unsporting behavior (a few suspension games in the worst case), he immediately resigns his resignation from the strategic committee of Fifa. And concludes his press conference by this address with respect to his attacker: "To Luis Suarez, to the person Luis Suarez, that no one knows better than us, I mean that he will never be alone. "
The results are there: semifinal at the 2010 World Cup, victory at the Copa America 2011, eighth finals in 2014 (but being out of the group of the death with Italy and the England) and, therefore, quarterfinals at this World Cup, or even more if affinities. "El Maestro" could have stopped everything. In 2010, his daughter begged him to retire to the top, having achieved the best performance of the Celeste for sixty years. Not the kind of house Tabarez, who answered him: "The task is just beginning." The health of the "Maestro" nevertheless inspires concern. In 2013, he postpones a hip operation because of qualifying for the Brazilian World Cup, and leads the matches by gritting his teeth.
In 2016, he announces that he suffers from neuropathy, which forces him to carry out motorized wheelchair training. "I do a lot of physiotherapy, with doctors and treatments, because I do not intend to leave" says a modest Tabarez about it. "He repeats that it is not very important, and that the only thing he needs is his brain" continues Jérôme Lecigne. Regularly questioned about this in a press conference, he fired a pirouette, quoting this poem of Mother Teresa: "When over the years, you can not run, walk quickly. you can walk briskly, walk slowly, when you can not walk slowly, use a cane, but do not hold back. "
Results helping, man has become an icon in Uruguay. Not for the depth of his tactical thinking, as for a Marcelo Bielsa. But for giving back pride and hope to a country of 3 million inhabitants to the pool of players inevitably limited. Before the match against Saudi Arabia, in chickens, Tabarez had entrusted this comical anecdote.
If we win a few more games, as in South Africa, I will again receive letters from ladies over 80, saying they hated football, but that the selection matches have them Wanted to go out into the streets and kiss the first comer … Oscar Tabarez in a press conference
The man is applauded when he goes to the restaurant, sees the session delayed when he is recognized in the cinema, tells the Uruguayan newspaper Ovacion ( in Spanish) . "The slightest displacement always takes longer than expected" sighs this discreet. The last proof of this love, the book Maestro: el legado de Tabarez has been at the top of sales since its release in April and promises to be the publishing phenomenon in Uruguay this year.
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