Rey and Vaccari saddened by U de Chile violence, want it settled on pitch | OneFootball

The protagonists of Independiente spoke out this Friday, on the occasion of the 0-0 draw as visitors against Instituto in Córdoba, about the barbaric acts carried out by their fans and those of Universidad de Chile, which forced the suspension of the Copa Sudamericana round of 16 second leg in Avellaneda.

The first to speak was captain Rodrigo Rey. “The match itself was sad, sad because of what happened, sad for football from start to finish. We were very scared for our families and those of the Chilean players. When we went to check near the corner where our people were, there were some with blood. These are things you never want to see in football, things that are not good,” he lamented.

The goalkeeper also stated on TNT that as players they try to focus on the sporting side: “Like today, we have to keep playing and that’s what we have to do as a group. We have to keep our minds set on that and on getting back to winning ways. We want all of this to never happen again, for it to be resolved in the best way, but at least let this serve as a wake-up call so that it never happens again in any football stadium.”

Julio Vaccari, in a press conference, agreed: “First of all, as a football fan, I feel a great sadness. You don’t prepare for this career to talk about these kinds of situations, but about football matters. Football should be sad about what happened,” began the coach, who did not miss the chance to ask for the match to continue, while waiting for Conmebol’s decision: “My wish is that football matters are always settled on the field. I know the people at Independiente are doing everything possible and we are all united behind that.”

The coach also referred to how the situation affected them closely, both because of the Chileans on the squad and their own relatives who were in the stands. “These have been complicated weeks and days, not only because we have players from Chile, but because the truth is that all of us, to a greater or lesser degree, had family members inside the stadium. From the first minute, a player came up to me and said, ‘Look, they’re throwing things at the families, see if you can get them out,’” he recalled.

“It was a complex, unpleasant situation that affected all of us. It’s very difficult to get these things out of your head, because we are people and what we feel, we bring to our work. We are not prepared to talk about this subject, we want to talk about football, but it’s something that affects us and for me, the word that defines it is sadness,” he concluded.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.