Osorio apologises for foul-mouthed outburst in ´almost violent´ Mexico win

Mexico head coach Juan Carlos Osorio apologised for his behaviour after tensions boiled over during the 2-1 Confederations Cup win against New Zealand – with replays appearing to show the Colombian calling opposition assistant Alex Armstrong a “bald-headed motherf*****”.

Leeds United striker Chris Wood put the tournament outsiders 1-0 up three minutes before half-time but spurned glorious chances either side of his goal that the All Whites would ultimately pay for with elimination.

Raul Jimenez pulled El Tri level and experienced striker Oribe Peralta snatched the points 18 minutes from time in a contest Osorio labelled as “almost violent”.

It concluded with a brawl featuring most players on the field, bad blood having lingered after New Zealand almost opened the scoring when Wood was played onside by Carlos Salcedo as the Eintracht Frankfurt defender lay injured on the turf.

An angry exchange between the two benches followed, with Osorio pinning the blame for the situation on Armstrong.

“First of all I would like to apologise to our followers. I have to say that my words were too strong,” he said at a post-match news conference.

“The way I talked to one gentleman, one of the assistants, was not okay.

“We always respect and understand how they play. They are very direct, they are very strong but when that goes too far and means disrespecting fair play, well, I stopped accepting and understanding.

“The situation where Salcedo fell down gave them a goalscoring opportunity that would have been terrible for us.

“Both our players and myself were shouting at them to please stop the game but there was no reaction on their side.

“The game was really rough, nearly violent and I think that’s unacceptable. That’s why I lost my temper. I was very offended and I heard some insults in my direction in Spanish.

“It is true that the camera shows what I said but their assistant is responsible for everything that happened.”

MEX 2-1 NZL
Watch highlights from #MEXNZL in #ConfedCup Grp A, as El Tri came from behind to get all 3 points
https://t.co/tUXEFZConE pic.twitter.com/IOEVJqgSsM

— #ConfedCup (@FIFAcom) June 21, 2017

New Zealand boss Anthony Hudson described Osorio’s reaction as “bizarre” and did not want to dwell on the unsavoury scenes after his players performed at a level far above their FIFA world ranking of 95th.

“I don’t want to sit here and talk about the negative things that were happening,” he said.

“These things are all part of the game. I’d rather talk about how my team performed and really a performance that I guarantee no one at this tournament expected.

“All the media talked about our team as having zero chance in this game, all of the media. I’d rather talk about how much of a big performance it was from every player, subs coming off the bench included.”

Hudson added: “The next step for us is to turn these big performances into results. We were very close I want us to feel that disappointment because we need to use that to make sure we keep improving.”