PHILADELPAHIA, June 25 : Ivory Coast coach Emerse Fae said comments from World Cup winner Bastian Schweinsteiger could be labelled racist after the ex-Germany midfielder described African football as “wild” and “unorthodox”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schweinsteiger is a pundit at the World Cup for German broadcaster ARD. Last week, before Germany beat the Ivorians in their second Group E fixture in Toronto, he said that Germany needed to be “prepared for it to be unpredictable at times”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said Ivorians played “African football”, which he characterised as “a bit unorthodox sometimes, a bit wild, not quite as tactical”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schweinsteiger was not immediately reachable for comment through his representatives or through ARD on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked for a reaction after Ivory Coast beat Curacao 2-0 on Thursday to finish runners-up behind Germany and advance to the last 32 at the World Cup, Fae told reporters he was disappointed by Schweinsteiger\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“When you know football the way he knows it, then it\u2019s odd that he would speak that way … which we could call racist if we were calling a spade a spade,” said Fae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“But that’s the way it is. Nowadays, we live in a world where everybody is free to say what they think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I can’t change his perspective. I can’t change the way he talks. But all I can do is show on the pitch that Africa is not just the physical game. We are very technical as well and very tactical.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Schweinsteiger has not publicly addressed the backlash over his comments about Ivory Coast\u2019s style of play, according to multiple media reports. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fae said he had been a fan of Schweinsteiger\u2019s playing style when he was in his prime at Bayern Munich and Manchester United, so much so that one of his friends nicknamed Fae “Bastian”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“All I can hope is that this was just a clumsy statement that it wasn’t particularly reflective of what’s in his mind, but, you know, such is life, that is football today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Nowadays, there are a lot of pundits, a lot of former players who are also looking to create a buzz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He was a worldwide star but has kind of been forgotten a little bit, so he’s trying to create a buzz. Good for him, if that’s what he thinks. He\u2019s free to do so. But we will move forward and we’ll try to ignore that,” Fae added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PHILADELPAHIA, June 25 : Ivory Coast coach Emerse Fae said comments from World Cup winner Bastian Schweinsteiger could be labelled racist after the ex-Germany midfielder described African football as “wild” and “unorthodox”. Schweinsteiger is a pundit at the World Cup for German broadcaster ARD. Last week, before Germany beat the Ivorians in their second Group […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12903],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12903"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418403"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418404,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418403\/revisions\/418404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/6gnx6dd.cc\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}