AIn the end, they lost their patience: Oscar Washington Tabarez stopped coaching the Uruguayan national team last Friday. A 3-0 defeat in the South American World Cup qualification ended one of the longest and most successful eras in South American football of nations.
Luis Suarez, Diego Godin and Fernando Muslera then left the field in La Paz with deeply disappointed mines. Some players still had on the lawn of the Olímpico Hernando Siles stadium, where many a South American star suddenly melted into a football dwarf in thin air at an altitude of 3,637 meters , even tears in my eyes. They probably knew about the situation in which they had put their 74-year-old coach with this defeat.
An unworthy ending
Four game days before the end of the game, the “Himmelblauen” are in seventh place, just one point behind Colombia, which occupies fourth place, which would be enough for direct World Cup qualification. A point that, given the outstanding games in Paraguay, against Venezuela and Peru and in Chile, could have been made up. For a coach who has always managed to get the best out of the last few meters of these South American eliminatorias. That’s why it’s an unworthy end for perhaps the greatest South American national coach of this century.
The football teacher, who was born in Montevideo, celebrated one of his greatest successes in 2011 in the country of his arch-rival, when tens of thousands of fans crossed the Rio de la Plata to watch Uruguay win the 2011 Copa America final against Paraguay live in Buenos Aires crowned the record winner of the world’s oldest national tournament at the time. Uruguay had previously knocked hosts Argentina and Lionel Messi out of the tournament in the quarter-finals in Santa Fe and ensured one of the blackest hours in Argentine football.
However, the brilliant performances of Uruguay at the 2010 World Cup, which they finished fourth, remained in global memory. Tabarez was named South America’s coach of the year twice. Since he took over the national team for the second time after 1988 to 1990 in 2006, Argentina has worn eight and Brazil four coaches.
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To this day, the world is fascinated by Uruguay, because the country with only 3.5 million inhabitants has produced a fascinating generation of world-class players: Diego Forlan, Luis Suarez, Edinson Cavani, Fernado Muslera and Diego Godin went through the fire for and with their coach. Because he managed to turn every meeting with the national team into a home experience for those who sometimes earned their money thousands of miles away by air, but who had left their hearts in Uruguay. And Tabarez caressed this heart with a kind of campfire mentality.
For the superstars, who experienced all the hysteria, hype and depravity of world football in Manchester or Barcelona on a daily basis, the trips to the national team were a trip into the past, into an ethically and humanly different environment. It was like coming home to grandpa and grandma, who were entrusted with things that you wouldn’t tell anyone else.
The “Maestro”, as they called him, was more than just a coach for the players. He was a life teacher. One who could digress at press conferences and suddenly ponder the meaning of life. The fact that he had needed walking aids in recent years because he fell ill with Guillain-Barré syndrome only reinforced this myth of the old, wise man.
Uruguay is now at the turning point in its football history. The generation around Luis Suarez still has four games left to make it onto the big stage of world football one last time. Even if this succeeds, nothing will be the same as it used to be. All of his previous 123 international matches have been played by Suarez under Tabarez. Maybe that’s why he wrung his tears after the game in La Paz.
Diego Godin said goodbye to the coach in the words that best described the feeling of connectedness: “I want to thank you for all you have taught me and for all the help you have given me in my life and professional career . “
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