Montevideo, Jan 3 (IANS) Uruguay’s top football club Nacional de Football has started training under new coach Gerardo Pelusso for the coming local tournament and the Copa Libertadores.
Pelusso’s first challenge will be the Copa Libertadores preliminary round, where Nacional will face Bolivia’s Oriente Petrolero Jan 28, and also on the local Clausura tournament that begins in February, reports Xinhua.
“The squad that trained today will not be the definite one. Some players will be loaned to other clubs. Nevertheless, beginning from this moment, I have to be fair and all the players are equal,” Pelusso told a press conference here Thursday.
“We had a good beginning. Next Monday we will begin with the camp stage,” said Pelusso, who replaced Rodolfo Arruabarrena last week after the Argentine resigned in December.
To the question whether the Uruguayan national team player, Jorge Fucile, will become part of Nacional, the coach said, “He is a player that every team wants to have.”
Pelusso also said that “everything is ready” to set the return of forward player Henry Gimenez, currently playing in Italy.
“Nacional has the obligation to win every match to be played. The one who wears Nacional’s jersey knows that we have to win, but we have to go slowly,” he said.
Pelusso, 59, was Nacional’s coach from 2007 to 2009, and helped the club lift the 2008-2009 league and also led them to Copa Liberatadores semi-finals in 2009.
Pelusso also trained Peru’s Alianza Lima, Chile’s Universidad de Chile, Paraguay’s Olimpia de Asuncion as well as the Paraguayan national team.