Batistuta laments Bielsa's Uruguay collapse after World Cup exit

Gabriel Batistuta said Marcelo Bielsa’s latest World Cup exit with Uruguay left a deeper scar than the scoreline suggested, after a 1-0 loss to Spain sent the Celeste out in Guadalajara. The former Argentina striker said something broke inside Uruguay during the tournament as the side finished third in Group H with two points and missed a second straight World Cup.

Bielsa confronted that failure after the defeat at Estadio Guadalajara, where he accepted responsibility for a campaign that fell far short of his own target. He said Uruguay played the group stage for seven points and ended with two, and added that he had not managed to unlock the full power of the players in the squad. He also argued that his spell in Uruguayan football had left nothing behind, because a coach’s ideas do not take root without results.

Uruguay’s exit against Spain capped a group stage in which the squad never found enough to escape third place.

Batistuta’s reaction carried extra weight because his connection to Bielsa runs back to Newell’s Old Boys in Rosario, where he first met him in the youth ranks. Batistuta said Bielsa helped shape him as a footballer and kept explaining the game to him when his career was beginning, though the relationship was not always close at the start. He has also never forgotten Argentina’s painful elimination at the 2002 World Cup under Bielsa.