Argentina criticizes Mercedes-Benz speech: “It’s better that we win”

The Argentina national team hit the pitch at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Thursday evening for the inaugural match of the 2024 Copa América, with goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez calling the newly installed turf surface a “disaster” and manager Lionel Scaloni saying that it was “better than that”. We won.”

“The state of the pitch was catastrophic,” said the Aston Villa goalkeeper. “Very bumpy. We need to improve in this aspect, otherwise the Copa América will always appear at a lower level than the European Championship.”

The Albiceleste triumphed 2-0 against Canada thanks to goals from Julián Álvarez and Lautaro Martínez who secured the team first place in the Group A standings. But Scaloni used the victory as an opportunity to denounce the conditions that reign at the home of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons – a synthetic surface covered with natural turf just two days ago – criticizing the organization’s poor planning.

“The match was like Saudi Arabia in the World Cup, except we had a good pitch,” Scaloni said, referring to his team’s defeat in the first match in Qatar in 2022. “It’s better that we win, otherwise it would have seemed like an excuse, but they knew seven months ago that we would play here and they changed the pitch two days ago. It’s not an excuse, but it’s not is not a good pitch honestly, this pitch is not suitable for these players.

“We didn’t necessarily play a good match, but a game depending on the pitch and what the opponent was offering. We couldn’t do much more with the conditions on the pitch. Look at the speed of the passes that we did.”

In addition to the Falcons, Mercedes-Benz Stadium is also home to MLS’s Atlanta United FC: both teams play on artificial surfaces. At the request of CONMEBOL, the stadium was grassed for the tournament.

When Atlanta United played the Houston Dynamo on Saturday, the venue still had an artificial surface.

“Two days ago it was fake, and then they dried grass panels together. It’s painted to look better than it is,” Scaloni said. “The strange thing is that we knew months ago that we would be playing here, so maybe things could have been done quicker on the pitch.”

Canadian defender Kamal Miller also criticized the pitch where his national team played its first Copa América match in history.

“It was like walking on a stage, like it was hollow,” Miller said.

A crowd of 70,564 attended the opening of the 32-game tournament. The United States faces Panama at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on June 27.

The stadium will host eight matches during the 2026 World Cup, including a semi-final.

Argentina’s next match in Group A is a match against Chile on Tuesday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Canada will face Peru the same day at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.