Montevideo City Torque edges Tigre 1-0 in Sudamericana round of 16 opener with a lesson in emotional leadership

Some wins are explained by a single goal, and others need a bit more context. Montevideo City Torque's 1-0 victory over Tigre this Wednesday in Victoria falls into the second category. The goal came from Franco Pizzichillo in the 53rd minute, and it was enough to win the first leg of the round of 16 in the 2026 Copa Sudamericana. But what lingered after the match, even more than the result, was the talk the captains gave before taking the field.

Marcelo Mendez, the Ciudadanos' head coach, choked up a bit recalling it in the postgame press conference. Asked how he had motivated the squad for a match of this magnitude, his answer was, above all, honest: motivation, he said, has to come from within.

The motivation to play games like this one has to come from within yourself. These are the games where you might need the least motivation; you have to live it, you have to feel it. There are things that, no matter how much I say them, if the person receiving them doesn't feel it, it's very hard. And these players have shown feeling.Marcelo Mendez

The coach went further and described exactly what happened in that moment before kickoff. He spoke of injured players who still show up to support the team, of people who keep pushing without knowing if they'll get minutes, and of a talk that ended up striking a nerve in the locker room. "That's where we touched a nerve, and at a certain point we also had to lift each other up," he explained, capping it off with an idea that sums up the group's philosophy pretty well: beyond winning or losing, it's good to feel something.

Mendez also wanted to make clear that this emotional atmosphere had nothing to do with the final score. He spoke of an entire club standing behind the result: executives, the cook, maintenance staff, everyone pushing in the same direction.

The captain's version

Gary Kagelmacher, the 38 year old defender and one of the squad's captains, gave his account in an interview with Minuto 1 on Carve Deportiva. He explained that pep talks are usually split between him and Franco Torgnascioli, and that this time he decided to touch on personal matters: difficult situations some teammates are going through and, as he admitted, something he himself is dealing with personally.

In the moment, I saw that a lot of people were emotional: players, club staff and members of the coaching staff. I think it went well because the message really landed, and that was the idea. Even people who weren't going to play got emotional. It came out naturally, that's just how it happened, and the best pep talks are the ones that come out naturally.Gary Kagelmacher

The defender stressed the importance of including those who don't get minutes: players who traveled without being called up, others who went through long injuries or family problems. For Kagelmacher, making them feel part of the group matters just as much as the result on the field.

On another topic that surrounded the week, the postponement of the match against Penarol in the Torneo Clausura, Mendez was blunt: he said both clubs wanted to play that game and that the postponement did not deliberately benefit anyone. "Both teams wanted to play," he repeated, brushing aside any suspicion of a competitive advantage.

With the 1-0 result in hand, City Torque will travel to Mexico with a slim but real advantage. The second leg will be played on Wednesday, August 19 at the Estadio Centenario, at 9:30 p.m. Uruguay time, in a match that will decide who advances to the Sudamericana quarterfinals.