COSTA RICA NEWS – Jorge Luis Pinto, the widely admired and acclaimed coach of the Costa Rican “miracle team” who has lately become the “genius tactician, revised and edited,” has finally replied to his critics who came forward after Fedefutbol announced his separation to portray him as an obsessive, petty, acid-tongued tyrant.
“If being a strict disciplinarian makes me a bad person,” Pinto wrote on the Internet “then I am one.” Monday the highly praised hero of the World Cup at the helm of a team completely dismissed at first by nearly everyone shot back at his critics.
Pinto has an advantage that he has not used since the Thursday press conference of the Fedefutbol announced his separation from the national team. “If being a strict disciplinarian and leaving nothing to chance makes me a bad person,” he wrote, “then I am…
“If to speak in a strong voice makes me a creep. then I am… But it’s inadmissible for anyone to insinuate any kind of violation or trampling of human rights on my part against some members of the (team) as, after two years of work, some people intend public opinion to believe without basis,” he wrote.
“I wanted to continue as coach with a staff that was 100% trustworthy and since I couldn’t get an agreement about this it was better not to continue,” he wrote of his reason for resigning. “Loyalty is fundamental for teamwork and this was obvious in its absence in my collaborators.”
He singled out the president of Fedefut (Eduardo Li) and the commissioner of soccer for the country. The latter who was especially harsh Thursday in the press conference, announcing publicly that the organization “had been, for a year and a half, sleeping with the enemy.”
Pinto also made clear his understanding of his contract to get results and not to “please everybody.” This he certainly did not, being characterized by coaches Paulo Cesar Wanchope and Luis Marin as being “ungentlemanly and uncouth and not respecting Costa Ricans.” They also called him an “egotist.”
La Nacion reported that Pinto left the country last Friday to attend a coach’s conference in German, hoping that they would remember the brilliant performance of the “Sele” and not the controversy that surrounds him here. But what looms big in this small country is unlikely to bother international soccer coaches.
Pinto praised this country as “beautiful” and invited its inhabitants to continue celebrating the national team’s brilliant performance in the World Cup. He characterized the 2014 World Cup as “unforgettable” (which no one can deny) and hoped these memories would be above “diatribes, gossip and pressures that do not benefit soccer or the country.”
Article by iNews.co.cr, reposted with permission
