Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni voiced his displeasure with the pitch at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium after his team’s 2-0 victory over Canada in the Copa America opener on Thursday. Scaloni criticized the temporary grass surface, installed just two days before the tournament began, for being unsuitable for the level of competition. He pointed out the lack of fluidity in Argentina’s first-half performance, drawing parallels to their 2022 World Cup opener in Qatar where they were surprisingly defeated by Saudi Arabia.
“The start looked like the match with Saudi Arabia, with the difference that we played on a more decent pitch that time,” Scaloni stated to reporters. “With all due respect, thank goodness we won. Otherwise, it would have been a cheap excuse. We have known for seven months that we are going to play here and they changed the turf two days ago. “It is not good for the show. It is not an excuse, the stadium is beautiful and with synthetic turf it must be spectacular, but with today’s turf it is not suitable for this kind of players.”
Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez echoed his manager’s sentiments, telling TyC Sports: “Coming here against a strong Canada, with good forwards and on a field that is a disaster made it a little difficult for us. “We have to improve in that aspect. Otherwise, the Copa America will always be at a lower level than the European Championship.”
Canada captain Alphonso Davies, while not satisfied with his team’s performance against the World Cup champions, also emphasized the need for improvement. “We have to change our attitude towards the game,” he told Canadian broadcaster . “The first half we played well, but in the second half we let every long ball bounce. It was a disappointing result, we need to look at everything we did wrong in the game and fix it as soon as possible.”
