Pedro García: “Carlos Bilardo has been the protagonist in the events related to the trap. It was anti-football.”

Last Wednesday, March 16, Carlos Bilardo turned 84 and in Argentina he received many tributes, especially in sports programs. And it's no wonder, because he won them the title of world champion in 1986 with Diego Maradona as the main character. However, not everyone sees it in the exclusive praise gallery.

Pedro García, for example, talked about the B-side of the former Argentine technician. And while recognizing the great qualities of the “Doctor”, he also remembered all the “tricks” he did throughout his career. He called it a “trap.” Get to know everything he said in the 'Al Angulo' program by Movistar Deportes.

“Something ambivalent is happening to me with Bilardo. He is a technical management patient, an obsessive of tactics, a deranged of what is the review to achieve something similar to defensive perfection... that's how he was a world champion,” began the famous sports journalist.

“Bilardo fascinates me because he refers me to the best Maradona. The best Maradona of all was directed by Bilardo. And recognizing his rigor, his tactical review and his illness of watching all the football in the world to be able to offer what he posed... he had an incredible video library when there was no YouTube. He was in anticipation of the obsession with seeing rivals,” he said.

“However, Bilardo has been the protagonist of the events related to the trap. I don't want to use another word. And I'm quoting a couple: a trainer who tells his kinesiologist 'walk on it to the rival', I don't like that. Nor do I like it in a World Cup, Bilardo's team, because he had to see, they approach Branco (player from Brazil) with a bottle with a sleeping pill. It's cheating,” said Pedro Garcia.

“Nor can I forget that watching a Peru vs Argentina match for the World Cup (June 1985), when if the 'bicolor' won in Buenos Aires they qualified directly... in that meeting, the one who had been the best in the first leg was Franco Navarro. The match starts and Julián Camino (Argentina), who was not used to playing, goes and breaks the Peruvian. It came from above, it came from Bilardo,” he recalled.

After that, they saw the images of that match between Peruvians and Argentines: “Julián Camino went to blow it up to Franco Navarro. And the referee only got yellow from him. It was red, prison and public repudiation. Look at that for me! I can't believe it! It was Bilardo's. He was also the anti-soccer player,” he said.

“Then Bilardo makes me laugh. I celebrate ingenuity and spontaneity. I love how he became a journalist and commentator... anything you want. But I can't help but see it and refer to something like the trap,” concluded Pedro García.