KOLKATA: When the Uruguayan squad arrived at the Salt Lake Stadium on a calm Monday evening for training, the vibes were immaculate. Forward Rodrigo Aguirre was playing loud Spanish music as he walked past the mixed zone, followed by Ronaldo Araujo and Darwin Nunez discussing football over cups of Matcha.
After a disappointing FIFA World Cup in North America this year, Uruguay sacked tactician Marcelo Bielsa and promoted their U20 coach and former striker Diego Forlan to the hot seat. His stint as La Celeste coach did not begin well. They were handed a 1-3 loss by Japan but managed to quickly turn things around to beat South Korea 4-1 last week. On Tuesday, they hope to finish the elongated international window on a high against India.
But the bigger picture is on how the two-time world champions can get back to their best, and upset the duopoly of Argentina and Brazil in South America. “If you're in a national team like Uruguay, you need to be good in all aspects. We need to try to make them feel confident and happy to play the way they play in their teams, because you can see their capacity and their ability. So, this is something that we are trying,” coach Forlan told reporters on the eve of his team's match.
One of his key objectives going forward is to improve all areas and bring balance in the team. With Uruguay failing to qualify for the knockout stages in their last two FIFA World Cups, the former striker believes it is important to get the best out of the talent the team possesses. “Being a manager, you need to understand that you're going to win and you're going to lose. So, when you win, you're not the best, and when you lose, you are not the worst. If you're talking about the last two World Cups, we didn't qualify and for a national team like Uruguay with the players we have, uh, it's not good. Sometimes, you're not getting the best out of them or things are not happening the way you want or getting the result that we wanted to.
"I want them to understand that I'm going to be the same if they win or lose. The most important thing is for you to give 100% and to try to do that and sometimes, there's always someone better than you, and that is life,” he added.
‘Can’t complain about time with players’
Due to club commitments, availability of the players has always been a talking point for national team managers. Before this year, there were two FIFA international windows in this part of the year – one in September and another in October. From this year, the global body has combined it into one three-week window from September to October.
“When you get the job and they tell you to coach a national team, you need to understand that the time that you will have is different from being a club manager. I'm not complaining about that, because it's been the way it's been for so many years and will be the same. You need to try to enjoy this kind of friendlies. In this case, we are talking about 20 days, where teams can play three or four friendly games. In our case, we decided to play three, because we travel a lot between Japan, South Korea, and now India. So, with the time you have, you try to enjoy it as much as you can and make the most out of the short time by making them feel comfortable,” Forlan signed off.
'Didn't sleep after Brazil loss'
“I didn't sleep. I was watching the game all night. And I slept the next morning and then I recovered.” India's full-back Akash Mishra recalled how he felt after the 0-4 defeat to Brazil on Monday. Over the last few days, the Indian football team has been entirely focussed on putting up a spirited fight against their next heavyweight opponents – Uruguay. Facing the media at the stadium, India head coach Khalid Jamil’s face appeared bright but his answers, as always, remained short and sometimes, dry. Jamil’s focus was all on Tuesday’s match, as he felt he and the team don’t have time to crib on the mistakes they made in their loss to the Selecao. “As I see, yesterday's (Sunday’s) practice, everybody wanted to be involved in it and no one complained. So that is a good sign, And thinking about anything, I don’t have time for that. We are playing on Tuesday, so I think it's better to think about it, that will be good for us,” he said.
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