The Celeste have changed their image under genius coach Oscar Tabarez but they still boast a few players with the ability to provoke opponents
On August 24, 2010, Real Madrid hosted Penarol in the Trofeo Santiago Bernabeu. It was, ostensibly, a friendly – but Marcelo ‘Pato’ Sosa didn’t ‘friendly’. When asked before the game how he intended to stop Cristiano Ronaldo, the former Uruguay international revealed that he would first take the Real forward out with a tackle and then “ruffle his hair to annoy him.”
He wasn’t joking, either. Sosa levelled Ronaldo inside six minutes. Then, just before the break, as the pair were jostling before a corner, he messed up the preening Portuguese’s perfectly styled hair, provoking a furious response from Ronaldo. Speaking afterwards with a beaming smile on his face, Sosa admitted to being amused that Ronaldo had appeared “more upset by me messing up his hair than the foul!”
In truth, Ronaldo had got off lightly. The history of ‘The Beautiful Game’ is full of ugly tales of Uruguayan skulduggery. After the 1930 World Cup football in Montevideo, Argentina’s players complained at having been unable to get a wink of sleep before the game because Celeste fans spent the night singing songs outside their hotel, while in Mexico in 1986, they kicked their way into the last 16, with a straight red card for Jose Batista after just 55 seconds of their group game against Scotland the undoubted lowlight of their campaign.
So, when Uruguay captain Diego Godin says that while his country’s footballers are fiercely competitive, they are “always honest and fair”, it’s tough to agree, particularly when he plays alongside Luis Suarez, the man whose deliberate handball was partly responsible for Ghana’s failure to reach the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup. But then, Suarez still has no regrets over his straight red card.
On the eve of the World Cup last-16 clash with Portugal in Sochi on Saturday, the Barcelona star admitted that the effectiveness of VAR means that “some players have less to complain about” before breaking into a smile and holding his hand up to acknowledge his reputation for appealing for fouls – even when he himself has bitten someone… Suarez then added sincerely, “Even with VAR, though, you have to consider what’s best for your team…”
Essentially, the end justifies the means, an adage embraced by many of Suarez’s predecessors. Indeed, some Uruguayan players and supporters still revel in their reputation as the masters of football’s dark arts.