Marcelo Bielsa tells it how it is
The Uruguay Manager left those lucky enough to have been in attendance at his CONMEBOL press conference yesterday with absolutely no doubt about his stance on modern football.
"If you let a lot of people watch football, but you don't protect the pleasure of what they watch, that favours business, because the business is that a lot of people watch football. For me, it [the introduction of technology through VAR] does a lot of harm to football. This sport has a particularity: when it becomes completely predictable, it loses its appeal. As time passes, as fewer and fewer footballers are worth watching and as the game produced is less and less enjoyable, this artificial increase in the number of spectators will be interrupted."
He went on to say: "Football is not five minutes of action, it is much more than that. It is a cultural expression, a form of identification. Tell a Uruguayan to watch the highlights of the Celesteā¦
"There will be more and more, but it has nothing to do with the essence that allowed a population to fall in love with the most identifying significant sign that a people possess. What we should all do is ignore this scenario that is presented to us where controversy, discussion, accusation, the determination of responsibility, become an obsession that deteriorates the climate in which football must be played."