Montevideo: Despite failing health, the veteran coach Oscar Tabarez has signed a four-year contract extension to remain at the Uruguay helm until the end of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, the South American country’s football federation said on Friday. Tabarez, who suffers from a nerve disorder that forces him to use crutches to walk, has been in charge of Uruguay since 2006. He was also the coach from 1988 to 1990 prior to that.
The 71-year-old has led Uruguay for 185 games, a record for any international coach.
He has also taken the country to four World Cups, another “record for a coach with a single national team,” said the federation.
Uruguay reached the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the quarterfinals in Russia earlier this year.
In 2011, Tabarez led them to the Copa America crown in neighbouring Argentina.
Tabarez’s spell in charge has coincided with a golden generation of Uruguayan players, notably strikers Luis Suarez of Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain’s Edinson Cavani, as well as the now-retired Diego Forlan before that.
The announcement comes at the end of a trying few weeks for the Uruguayan federation following the sudden resignation of Wilmar Valdez. — AFP
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