Óscar Tabárez: unbowed by illness and adding beauty to Uruguay’s grit

The manager cannot walk unaided because of ‘a chronic neuropathy’ but it does not impinge on his work with the players

The head cocked to one side, the patient expression, the pause while an answer is considered: in some ways this is the same Óscar Tabárez he has always been. His answers in press conferences still ring with intelligence and clarity. He is still the impeccably dressed police chief he always was, a man who somehow includes on his CV both being a primary school teacher and holding a raging Gabriel Batistuta back by the nipple during a riot in Santiago while bleeding from a wound to the cheek without it seeming remotely surprising.

But Tabárez is older now. The hair is not quite so steely, and thinning so his parting is not as rigid as it once was. And then there is what he describes as “a chronic neuropathy” which means he walks always with at least a stick and sometimes with crutches or even, as at the Copa América Centenario two years ago, gets about using an electric cart. He has consistently refused to talk about the issue in any detail, repeating only that it does not impinge on his work with the players.

Continue reading...