Alexis Sánchez is not having his best moment. The former FC Barcelona striker is the undisputed leader of the Chilean team, which is at the bottom of the South American qualifying table for the 2026 World Cup.
With a change of coach following the resignation of “Toto” Berizzo, Alexis seemed very uncomfortable in the last FIFA selection window.
In a bad moment with both his club Inter and Chile, the man from Tocopilla has only scored one goal so far this season and his performance has plummeted with Chile.
The striker also complained about the state of the showers and the poor condition of the Monumental Stadium and the facilities where Chile gathered. Alexis is no longer silent.
In the worst start in the history of World Cup qualifying in the South Cone, the “Roja” is a powder keg and Alexis is in the eye of the hurricane, both as an object of criticism and as a self-critic.
Against Ecuador we saw the worst version of the former Blaugrana, angry and disconnected from the game. As La Tercera points out, Alexis was more concerned with insulting his teammates like Felipe Loyola, Alexander Aravena and Ben Brereton than scoring a goal.
“Alexis has always been like that, he is a perfectionist as a striker, he is a responsible player who always works well. I don’t think he’s bothered by coming, but he wants everything to always go well,” says Juan Carlos Letelier, Striker for the Chilean national team in Spain 1982.
A similar opinion to Jorge Aravena, who was Tocopillano’s coach in the Chilean U17 team and also in Cobreloa. In his opinion, the captain of La Roja in Quito is right to make the effort.
“It’s normal for something like this to happen, when things don’t work out, when we don’t win, we don’t score; Everyone starts to lose patience. It’s true that in the game against Ecuador he devoted a lot of time to arguing because everyone is frustrated. “Sánchez won’t always be there to solve things,” says the former Universidad Católica midfielder.
Amid rumors about his possible withdrawal from the Chilean team, Gazzetta dello Sport revealed that the player was suffering from “a blood problem”, i.e. severe anemia, which prevented him from training normally.
“The coaching staff of the Chilean national team is assessing Sánchez’s condition while clinical tests – not serious and known to Inter – are being carried out on his hemoglobin level, which is below the normal reference value,” the media said.
Last Saturday, Alexis Sánchez spoke to the media in the preview, where he sharply criticized the infrastructure of Juan Pinto Durán, the “Roja” training center. He also explained that at the Monumental, where the national team played against Paraguay, there was literally excrement coming out of the showers.
“In Juan Pinto Durán I would like to have a real place, or a shower. There are three showers that don’t work and you have to wait for the other person to shower. A team can’t function like that,” he shot.
The criticism goes around the world and reflects the striker’s anger at the conditions he finds when he crosses the Atlantic to play for his national team.
The historians investigate Alexis’ complaints. Letelier added: “Alexis is used to a different level in everything, that’s why he complains about the facilities that Chile has. “It’s logical, maybe it happens more often with the players here.”
However, there was a question in the middle about the Tocopillano’s words. Not so much because of the substance of the issue, but because of the timing at which the criticism was made, in the middle of the double elimination period and after the resignation of coach Eduardo Berizzo.
“If he had said it in the best case scenario, they would have said he was taking advantage of the situation because they were well placed. Now it is said that he apologizes for the poor results. But things need to be said in the moments they need to be said,” says Aravena.