Brazil – Argentina, the great challenge of Latin American football stopped after 6 minutes…

Unbelievable. Brazil and Argentina play just 6 minutes into the Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifier. Then something never seen before happens: Brazilian police invade the pitch to remove three players who should have been quarantined due to Covid- 19. Argentina leaves the field and refuses to return without them. Brazilian players remain on the field, then the game is suspended and not restarted…….

But what happened?

Here’s the flow of events on September 5:
The old super challenge of historic rivals Brazil-Argentina in Sao Paulo ends in the 6th minute of the first half. Then Argentina leaves the field. The Brazilian medical staff prohibit goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, midfielder Lo Celso, defender Romero and winger Buendía from playing. The first three were starters and were on the field, the fourth on the bench. They all come from the “Premier League”: the rule says that all those who have been in the United Kingdom in the last 14 days, must do as much quarantine as possible in Brazil.

The health authorities wanted to prevent them from leaving the hotel, but after the intervention of the South American federation they were allowed to enter the Argentine formation. Immediately after the start of the match, however, local health surveillance agents invaded the pitch to evict them and there was even forceful pushing of the Argentine players.

Ten minutes after leaving, Leo Messi returns to the field without the jersey of the Argentinian representative and starts talking to the Brazilian players, who in turn did not leave him nor were they ever instructed to leave the field. Chaotic situation in Sao Paulo. After about 5 minutes of conversation, Messi and coach Skaloni leave the field again. The Brazilians are still on the field. Paredes and Otamendi joined Messi in the dressing room tunnel. Brazil remains on the field and will not abandon it. A full 30 minutes have now passed since the game was stopped.

The 4 players who were banned are Emiliano Martínez, Lo Celso, Romero and Buendía. The first 3 were placed by Scaloni in the starting formation of the meeting. According to the Brazilian authorities, it is their fault that they were not quarantined before entering the field of play, as they had all been in England in the 14 days before arriving in Brazil. According to local health regulations, they should have been placed in isolation. All four of the aforementioned however played in Venezuela in Argentina’s last game. The Brazilian authorities had actually arrived at the hotel where “Seleccion” was located in the first hours of the start of the match to request the expulsion of the 4. The intervention of the federation “Conmebol” made the match to be played.

Diplomatic joke – Argentina has been present in Brazil since Friday, September 3 (so 2 days before the match) but the problem of the position of the 4 players mentioned above appeared only a few hours before the start of the match, scheduled for 16 ;00 pm in Sao Paulo. “We’ve been here for 3 days and they’ve been waiting for the game to start to tell us we can’t play,” Messi said as he chatted with the players and Brazilian authorities. Meanwhile, the players of Brazil gathered in the form of a circle on the field, near the touchline. They spoke for about 2 minutes, before parting ways and returning to the bench. Now 50 minutes have passed since the game was stopped and the Brazilians continue to stay on the field. Argentina remains locked in the dressing room and has apparently decided in the event of the match not to return to the field without the 4 “accused”.

CONMEBOL’s decision comes
– “By the decision of the referee, the match between Brazil and Argentina is suspended. The referee and the match commissioner will send a report to FIFA, which will determine the decisions to be made. The World Cup preliminaries are matches that are held under the care of FIFA itself. All decisions on the organization, development, suspension, and other phenomena that may appear in this case are the exclusive competence of FIFA.

The coach of the Argentine national team Scaloni expressed his point of view (words taken from Seleccion’s Twitter profile): “What happened makes me very sad. I’m not looking for the guilty. If something happened or not, now was not the time to intervene this way. It should be a celebration, an opportunity to see the best players in the world. I want the Argentine people to know that as a coach I have to protect my players: if someone enters the field saying we have to leave or that they want to deport us, I tell them that there is no way. They never told us that we could not play: the delegate of Conmebol told us to go back to the dressing room. We have suffered damage, Brazil wanted to do the same.” Even the president of the Argentine Football Federation, Carlos Tapia, also said (words taken from Seleccion’s Twitter profile): “What happened today is bad for football, it’s an image really bad Four people entered the pitch to stop play and Conmebol ordered the players back to the dressing room. There was no lie: there are health rules under which all South American tournaments are played, rules approved by the health authorities of all participating countries. We followed them.”

And finally ……..

FIFA considers the suspension of the match between Brazil and Argentina “after a decision by the officials of this challenge”. Then, through the FIFA media profile on Twitter, it announced that “a decision from its side will be taken at the right time”.

Meanwhile, FIFA starts an investigation . A decision will be made within 72 hours. There are many shadows surrounding the intervention of the Brazilian health authorities. Now it’s about understanding what will be the consequences of the sensational suspension of the match, imposed by an intervention of the Brazilian health authorities after 6 minutes of play. The Brazilian federation has issued a statement in which it supports the Argentine protests, “clearing itself” of the alleged interference of local institutions.

In Argentina, there is the possibility of winning the match on the table, but the matter is in the hands of the FIFA disciplinary committee – which will decide within 72 hours of the suspension of the challenge. Fierce controversy over the incident and the intervention methods of the Brazilian authorities, who entered the field armed. Meanwhile, the Argentine team returned home after being locked in the dressing room for more than two hours. The intervention of the Argentine ambassador, who accompanied Messi and his teammates to Sao Paulo airport, was decisive.

September 6, 21 The odyssey of the suspended match continues. The police open an investigation for the 4 albiceleste players Emiliano Martinez, Emiliano Buendia, Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso will have to answer for false ideology and non-compliance with health rules against infection. According to “Globonews”, the four Argentine players who did not respect the quarantine to prevent the spread of Covid 19 – are being investigated by the Brazilian federal police for false ideology. The four will also be investigated for non-compliance with health regulations. The police emphasized that the players of the Argentine national team already knew that they could not take the field against Brazil. The four Argentine athletes are accused of having lied by filling out the anti-Covid health form upon entering the country, and testifying that they have not passed through the United Kingdom and therefore have not respected the mandatory 14-day quarantine……

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