WORLD CUP USA ’94 / QUARTERFINALS : Spotlight : HE SPEAKS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE, AND WE DON’T MEAN SPANISH
The award for the most frustrating interview of the World Cup goes to Mexico Coach Miguel Mejia Baron. He is a well-composed man who doesn’t duck the press after games, win or lose. But when he answers questions, it is in a language apparently spoken only on the moon. Baron has never met a question he hasn’t deflected.
For example, he is quoted on the official biography sheet as saying, “I like the players’ attitude of taking part in their game regardless of anything and regardless of the rival.”
OK, so perhaps that is only a bad translation that somehow got into print. But listen to some postgame quotes, specifically after Tuesday’s embarrassing loss to Bulgaria when the better team, his, didn’t win.
Question: What was your thinking near the end of the game when you didn’t put in Hugo Sanchez?
Answer: “Hugo and I talked and there was a possibility that he would have been a sub.”
Q: Why no substitutions at all near the end, when your team was dead tired and you were in overtime? Didn’t that seem logical?
A: “Logic is a very relative thing. Logic to you may not be logic to me.”
Mexican reporters say they are able to read between the lines with Baron. If they can, it is journalism at its highest interpretive level.
