Maradona's polemic declarations

"Suck it now, suck it and keep on sucking", Maradona said when the match was over on Wednesday, referring to the Argentine journalists who had criticized him. "This goes out to all of you that treated me like rubbish" he added.

"I have to thank my players for this qualification; they played like men and established me as a coach". He claimed.

"This is for all the Argentineans and my family, but there's a sector that doesn't deserve it (referring to the press) because they treated me like rubbish" he added.

"The truth is I'm grateful to the team and the people, and no one else. You can suck on it, and keep on sucking." According to Olé, Maradona had said the said the same thing while celebrating on the field "suck on it now, suck on it and keep on sucking!":

Maradona's declarations were picked up and criticized all over the world. The Spanish media were surprised by his words and asked the coach to "reflect":

"In today's game we were careful because two results were good enough for qualification, but we beat a great team and achieved the objective" he claimed.
"Today, various argentine football players who earn a lot of Money sweated like never before; they made an effort and we got our well deserved qualification" he assured.

Maradona didn't answer whether he was going to coach the team in the world cup after all the problems surrounding the issue. "I have to speak to (Julio) Gorgona" he said, referring to the AFA president.

"They've invented arguments with (Carlos) Bilardo, among other things" he said, speaking about his relationship with ex Argentine coach and current coordinator of the team.

The coach admitted having "suffered until the end of the match with Uruguay"
"Uruguay has a great team and a coach like (Oscar) Tabarez whom I respect and admire", he said. Maradona considered that "Uruguay can go to the world cup and I really hope they do because I have a lot of friends in this country"

"I'd like to congratulate Marcelo Bielsa (Chile coach)for the qualifications. Chile is back in the world cup and with a great coach" he stated.

Tabárez's mea culpa

Coach Oscar Washington Tabárez, said that the team got some things wrong and paid a high price for the mistakes, when talking about the match against the Argentine team.

After being beaten, Uruguay is placed 5th in the South American qualification and has a chance to qualify by playing Costa Rica.

"It was a closed match, it didn't flow and there were few chances: with a bit of luck Argentina was able to take advantage of the chance it got", he added. "In football we can't talk about who deserves what, we can only talk about results: Argentina scored and won".

"We had to win, drawing or losing was the same, we didn't meet our objective and that makes us sad, but the illusion of going to South Africa is still there and we're going to hang on to it", he assured

"We lost an opportunity but it's no use feeling bad about it, we have to move on, think about what's coming and find the way to be as best prepared as possible to face the team we have to play against" said Tabarez.