Following another match in which Blackburn Rovers star Ben Brereton Diaz played for Chile at the weekend, we saw some passive-aggressive comments from national team star Arturo Vidal about him.
The former Juventus star pointed out that the striker will soon learn that international football ‘isn’t the Championship‘, sounding like the newcomer will still have to adapt to it.
It turns out, however, that Chile haven’t been doing great lately.
They haven’t qualified for the World Cup, and since then, also had very poor results in recent friendlies.
So as former national team figures come up to talk about this controversy between Vidal and Brereton Diaz, they point out that the striker may not find such a different level than he’s used to at Blackburn.
“Perhaps the statements are not adequate because of what the team is going through,” Jorge Contreras told La Tercera.
“We should try to understand him. Perhaps he wants to imply that the national team levels are higher than the Championship, but the level of our team does not reach a second division of English football because we are not playing well.”
“So I don’t understand what the message, the criticism, the advice would be, I don’t know how to understand what Arturo Vidal is trying to say.”
“He gives reasons for others to talk about his performance and that is not good. There’s an overall issue, of leadership, of driving as well, which logically, understanding that a stage is beginning, must be fixed. You don’t have to make individual comparisons, or leagues, or anything. Everyone is responsible for the performance that the selection is having.
Former fullback Gabriel Mendoza also talked about the issue, pointing out that Brereton can help Chile in this rebuild.
“He’s a goalscorer. He’s a player who was in the sights of great teams in the Premier League and that, perhaps, Arturo sees reflected in him that the system and that the way of playing in Chile is different.
“He has to adapt to the Chilean players, to the type of operation that the national team has, which is not the same as in the qualifiers and perhaps he expects much more from Ben up front. We have to think that neither Ben nor Alexis had great opportunities to hurt Morocco”.
“Vidal is an authorised voice and he can say what he wants. When he makes an opinion or criticises himself individually, he is very frowned upon, but that is the personality that has a reference to begin to shake this team a little. Brereton did very well in the last qualifiers, he was a scorer, an important player and, perhaps, this is a ‘scratch’.”
Brereton already has 14 appearances for Chile, but since he was born and raised in English and doesn’t even speak Spanish, it is no surprise that he gets a bit of special attention in the national team.
The striker is expected to be in the friendly against Qatar tonight before returning to Blackburn.
