USA’s Mauricio Pochettino, Canada’s Jesse Marsch dance around geopolitical questions ahead of Nations League

Inglewood, Calif. – Six weeks before the last four teams stood in the Concacaf Nations League, gathered in the Los Angeles area, the new geopolitical realities of the US placed themselves as a huge cloud that would linger over the North -American football championship. The list of events that indicate so much grew quickly, from Comedian Jon Stewart’s Concacaf Quip During an episode from the beginning of February from “The Daily Show” to the heated 4 Nations Challenge between the American and Canada Hockey teams weeks later. Jesse Marsch, the American coach of the men’s football team of Canada, ensured that the subject would enter the domain of his sport with a strict reprimand of the ’51st state’ rhetoric of US President Donald Trump in the middle of a tariff war, just a few days after Canada’s hockey team was a great win in the south of the southern of the South of the South.

By the time that each of the main coaches of the US, Canada, Mexico and Panama started their way to Sofi Stadium on Tuesday for pre-match comments prior to the semi-finals on Thursday, each of them said that football is everything they talked about with their players and everything they want to concentrate this week.

To a certain extent, the question was perhaps the most urgent for Panama head coach Thomas Christiansen, whose side is guaranteed on Thursday in the first semifinal the American national team of the American men. This matchup comes in the midst of tensions between the two countries over the Panama Canal, of which Trump claimed that the US “recovered” in his speech earlier this month in his speech to a joint session of the congress, Something that Panama president Jose Raul Mulino called a lie. Christiansen, who comes from Denmark, remained free from any comments on that front on Tuesday.

“It’s not a plan of motivation. Speaking or talking about politics, it’s not my area,” said Christiansen. “I prefer to leave it behind … it’s not my case. If you want to talk about football systems or tactics, I am happy to talk about it, but politically, it’s not my thing.”

While Christiansen kept his comments short, his counterparts could not do this, collapsed with the inherent clumsiness of addressing the elephant in the room. Although Marsch was in his comments from a month ago, he chose not to be a fire brigade on Tuesday and instead he received an unexpectedly optimistic approach.

“I hope that this tournament can be the best reflection of our societies, and that we don’t have to waste time to express national folk songs and get caught in politics,” said Marsch, “and we can simply concentrate on the players and the teams and the love of the game, the love of the sport and what your nationality is, that you, [are able to] Support your team completely. “

Mauricio Pochettino, the Argentinian head coach of the USMNT, repeated the genius attitude of Marsch, both in his public comments and in a private interaction that it previously shared.

“I found Jesse Marsch in the field, and we were talking in a very good way,” he said. ‘We are so friendly because we know it [each other] From Europe. “

Marsch and Pochettino agreed that the current state of affairs in North America should not influence their pre-match preparations and that both players and staff are the right to retain their opinion for themselves. Marsch admitted that his players are “very conscious”, but that he does not blame them because he does not want to be “political figures”, while Pochettino said he has a certain series of values, but said he was not qualified to delve into geopolitical nuances, giving an answer that lasted for three minutes than three minutes.

However, he took a more pointed attitude on the subject than his counterparts, claiming that “people don’t wait for us to talk this way.” The USMNT coach was particularly strict about not mixing pre-match preparation and politics, referring to how the Falklands War from 1982 between the VK and Argentina did not influence his ability to work and live in London.

“I think we can’t combine political things with sport,” said Pochettino. “I think motivation cannot be from different political problems, diplomatic problems, that we cannot be intolved in. Players cannot be intolved in there, cannot think in there … you know very well that I came from argentina and all that netthythythythe is home -happed in betwij. The UK to Mix all these situations Never was my way, please, we need to enjoy, because soccer and football is about having fun, for the fans to Enjoy, Happiness. “

Just like his counterparts, Marsch has aimed at other nationalist exercises that do not feel -contaminated in international sports. He admitted that he wants his team to embrace “Canadian hockey mentality” and texts with Jon Cooper, the head coach of Canada’s Hockey Team, during the 4 Nations Challenge. However, whether the Final Four teams of the Concacaf Nations League want to talk about it, but it is difficult to ignore the circumstances.

“The climate for sport in North America is elevated for national teams,” said Marsch. “We know that there is a charged atmosphere about what these international games mean now.”