DOHA (AP) — Former coach Arsène Wenger, now at FIFA, has criticized teams who tried to make political statements in Qatar on Sunday, saying they lacked concentration in their first matches.
Wenger noted that teams that got off to a good start were mentally primed to focus on the competition and “not political rants”. The former Arsenal manager did not specify which teams he was referring to during an analysis of group stage matches at a FIFA journalists event, which he attended as head of World Football Development.
Denmark and Germany started the tournament on the wrong foot. The Danes drew 0-0 against Tunisia and the Germans lost 2-1 against Japan.
They were among seven European teams who wanted their captains to wear multi-coloured armbands during the World Cup as part of a Dutch campaign against diversity and discrimination to denounce the hosts’ poor human rights record.
Wenger, however, overlooked the role of world football’s governing body, which avoided the issue until a few hours before the start of the matches in question and threatened to show yellow cards to anyone who used them.
Sharing the stage with Wenger, German football legend Jurgen Klinsmann highlighted the mental demands the tournament places on players in Europe and offered a different theory.
Klinsmann, who analyzes matches for FIFA, noted that players from Europe’s major leagues had one week to prepare for the World Cup, compared to the usual two weeks played in June.
“For coaches, preparing a team in a week is very, very difficult, of course,” said Klinsmann, who has attended two World Cups as a coach, with Germany in 2006 and the United States in 2014.
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