Marcelo Bielsa steps down from Uruguay role in explosive 100-minute press conference

Marcelo Bielsa has suggested that “nobody was interested” in what he transmitted after Uruguay were knocked out of the World Cup.

The 70-year-old former Leeds boss oversaw a disappointing tournament with Uruguay, who finished third in Group H but did not have enough points to squeeze into the knockout stages.

Uruguay secured just two points in their group campaign with draws to Saudi Arabia and Cape Verde before losing 1-0 to Spain.

Speaking at a press conference lasting an hour and 40 minutes, Bielsa bid a “very painful” goodbye and suggested that “nothing” he tried to transmit was “important at any level”.

“What I have absolute certainty of is that nobody cares what I know,” Bielsa told journalists.

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“I know when someone cares what I know. Nothing I tried to transmit was important, at any level. That was never important from my point of view. I don’t see anything bad in it — other people aren’t interested in learning what I know. Case closed.

“Nobody was interested in what I transmitted, I don’t have the smallest doubt of that.

“I’ve experienced it in the same way that an engineer who lived in Australia and wanted to be a manager in Montevideo came over. I said ‘OK, come over’, I told him what I know and he accepted it and is now working in Uruguayan football. He’s the only one who I remember being interested.”

Bielsa concluded his mammoth press conference by acknowledging two incidents that took place during the World Cup.

For his television pictures shown before matches, Bielsa opted to look downwards during the shots and also spoke about his reaction during a post-match television interview in the aftermath of their defeat to Spain.

“I wanted to make reference to something – an apology, in inverted commas. When they took my photo for Fifa, I’m no good at posing for photos,” he said.

“And the second thing I wanted to refer to was after the game against Spain, when there’s obligations with the companies who buy the rights to give a certain quantity of interviews. They manage times of anguish as if they were times of happiness.

“I reacted against the delay in the questions which I was obliged to answer and I reacted because they waited, waited and I was overcome with pain. That’s why I perhaps wasn’t as polite as I should have been.”

PA