Brazil coach criticizes Mbappe for "European football"
The coach of the Brazilian national football team, Tite, responded to previous statements by the star of France and Paris Saint-Germain, Kylian Mbappe, about the superiority of European football over that of South America.
And last May, the World Cup winner with France in 2018, in response to a question about the most prominent candidates to win the World Cup in Qatar at the end of this year, said: “The advantage that we Europeans have is that we always face each other, and we have high-level matches such as the Nations League, for example. ".
"We get to the World Cup ready, while Brazil and Argentina do not face this level of competition in South America, football is not as developed as in Europe, which is why the modern world champions were European."
In an interview Tuesday with ESPN Brasil, Tite responded to these comments, stressing that the competition in South America is very difficult.
"(Mbappe) may be talking about these matches in the Nations League or European friendlies, but not the World Cup qualifiers," he said, noting that the challenges faced by the teams in South America, especially playing at high altitudes in Bolivia, the high temperatures and facing strong teams. like Uruguay.
"Sorry, but we don't have Azerbaijan to face it. No rival makes things easier for you. Qualifiers here have a much higher degree of difficulty than the group stage" in the European qualifiers.
Mbappe's statements sparked criticism from other people in South America, most notably his colleague in Saint-Germain, Lionel Messi.
In an interview with TechSport, the Argentine said: “We talked about it several times in Spain, when we came back from the qualifiers, we told them you don't know how difficult it is to qualify for the World Cup if you have to go there, to heights, in the heat, in Venezuela. ".
Former Uruguay striker Sebastian "Loco" Abreu suggested that Mbappe do more "research on Wikipedia".
Since Brazil won the 2002 World Cup, four European teams have won the title in the last four editions.
Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news