COLOMBIA vs EL SALVADOR, AUGUST 7TH HOUSTON, TX

GOALKEEPERS
• AGUSTIN JULIO – SANTA FE (COL)
• HECTOR FABIO LANDAZURY – ONCE CALDAS (COL)

DEFENDERS
• ALEXIS HENRIQUEZ – ONCE CALDAS (COL)
• HUMBERTO MENDOZA – ATLETICO NACIONAL (COL)
• IVAN VELEZ – AMERICA DE CALI (COL)
• LUIS NUÑEZ – ONCE CALDAS (COL)
• FARID DIAZ – ENVIGADO F. C. (COL)

MIDFIELDERS
• JHON VIAFARA – ONCE CALDAS (COL)
• JAIRO PALOMINO – ATLETICO NACIONAL (COL)
• DORLAN PAVON – ENVIGADO F. C. (COL)
• CRISTIAN MARRUGO – DEP. TOLIMA (COL)
• LUIS FERNANDO MOSQUERA – IND MEDELLIN (COL)
• GIOVANNI MORENO – ATLETICO NACIONAL (COL)
• JOSE MANUEL NAJERA – REAL CARTAGENA (COL)

STRIKERS
• ADRIAN RAMOS – AMERICA DE CALI (COL)
• TEOFILO GUTIERREZ – ATL. JUNIOR (COL)
• FREDY MONTERO – SOUNDERS (EE. UU.)

 After proving himself as Colombia’s top goal scorer with Atletico Junior, Teofilo Gutierez was finally placed on the starting line-up to face El Salvador in Houston, Texas. With no surprise at all, Teo scored  a goal 14 minutes into the game and answered any doubts that concerned him. Colombia ended up winning 2-1 and has completed its first task concerning the several friendly matches that Colombia has planned in the United States. So far with Atletico Junior, Teofilo has scored 1/2 a goal 61 games, scoring three hat tricks within the past two seasons. Teo is an amazing player who has worked hard to reach such high status in Colombia’s history. He has been applauded by even the greatest players, including Ivan Rene Valenciano, who at times is compared to a lot because he was a top goal scorer for Junior as well and then went off to carry the Colombian national squad by scoring 13 goals in 29 games. So far, “el Barranquillero” Teofilo Gutierez is following in his footsteps and according to Teo, will continue scoring goals not only for his club team, but for that national team as well. Teo is a player who can score goals and lead the Colombian national squad to another world cup. If Eduardo Lara does not see this, then Colombia has no future and will continue to fall in the standings. “VAMOS TEOFILO!! ERES LA SALVACION DEL FUTBOL COLOMBIANO!!!”

Colombia vs. Venezuela (tonight)  

Alright, so the line up for tonight’s game is as follows:  1-4-2-3-1

                                                                            David Ospina

                                Camilo Zúñiga – Cristian Zapata – Mario Yepes – Luis Núñez

                                                              Abel Aguilar-  Gerardo Bedoya

                                          Darwin Quintero – Macnelly Torres – Vladimir Marín

                                                                          Falcao García

Are there any flaws with this line-up? Yes I believe so. First of all, Gerardo Bedoya is known for being a really dirty player and has received a lot of cards for fouls in the past. I have no idea why he is starting but hopefully Lara knows what he is doing. In addition, we have the left back, Luis Nunez who hasn’t had any experience with the national team in the past. Unfortunately, Wason Renteria, who scored against Bolivia, Pablo Armero, and Fabian Vargas, will be missing. Up to now, Colombia has come up with 14 points, thanks to 3 wins, 3 losses, and 5 ties. The team has scored 6 goals and has taken in 8 goals. This is Colombia’s game to prove to their country that they are capable of still dreaming.

A decade ago, the Colombian national team was considered to be one of the dark horses of the South American continent. A dream squad with hardcore defenders and lightning rapid attackers who during that time were greater than strikers of the Samuel Eto quality. However during these past years, it has been hard for Colombia to achieve any important status and nobody really knows why though. It’s like todays players aren’t playing for the hunger of glory, but only for the money and benefits. Last year, Coach Jorge Luis Pinto took over and came off with a great start, beating Argentina 2-1 in Bogota. After that day it was on. It seemed that Colombia could beat anybody. But this guy had to mess everything up by recruiting players that weren’t on the team that beat Argentina. He completely changed everything. Why the hell would you do that? He brought players who didn’t feel passionate for the team jersey. The colors didn’t mean anything to them and as these mistakes kept rising, he quit his job and personally, I believe that the new Colombian squad that Coach Lara has built is one that can go to the South Africa 2010. The defense is truly solid. In the back we have experience and endurance with players like Mario Yepes, who has been around for a while with the national team and “Pablito” Armero, who sweats the shirt like if tomorrow did not exist. Colombia needs players like these who don’t give up and with this new solid defense, Colombia’s goalie, Ospina will probably have a shutout every single game. Colombia’s new midfield is tremendous. Being led by the “magic” Macnelly Torres, Colombia has true vision for attack and for its defensive side. However, the truly astonishing side of Colombia’s new squad is that it somehow reminds you of the squad of 94’ that was able to beat Argentina 5-0 as the visiting team. Both Darwin Quintero and Pablito Armero are players who bring those memories back because they have that ’salsa dance’ style to the way they play which Colombia has always been known for. Over the past years people have been asking: what ever happened to that style of soccer that Colombians used to play? For those people who ask themselves that question, I say that it is back. This 2009 year will be a good one for Colombia. Even Roberto Carlos has said it, “Colombia has the sufficient talent to take their country to the World Cup.” I have a good feeling about this year and with our recent victory over Bolivia 2-0 , we’re looking foward to dancing over Venesuela and preparing ourselves for the ultimate match against Argentina at their house.     

The team played quite well past 2 matches (against Paraguay on Saturday and Brazil), but it’s meaningless if we don’t get any good results… now we have just 11 points in 10 matches and our hopes to go to the world cup are slowly fading away….

There’s not much to say about tonight game. As I said already, we played quite well against a team full of world-class players (Kaka, Robinho, Pato, Mancini). I’m really glad Mario Yepes is back playing with the national team, and I’d like to see others like Cordoba and Angel making a come back as well.

This might be the last game with Lara as national coach, seems like we will appoint a new one on January…

Talking about the game, we played better than Peru on the first half, but second half was a different story, they outplayed us and Pinto’s “wonderful” tactics, and being honest we should have lost the game,¡ lady luck was with us this time.

And now we have to play against a great team who almost defeated Argentina. I wonder if Pinto will play with 10 defenders, seems he has already said he’d be pleased with another draw…. there you have it, we have a coach who doesn’t want to win, let’s see what he has on mind.
If you ask me I would play 4-2-2-2, using Zapata: Zuñiga, Mosquera, Moreno, Bustos; Escobar, Sanchez, Amaya, Vargas; Falcao, Perea.

Let’s see what will happen.

Pinto replaced Castrillón and Ferreira for Grisales and Torres in the beginning of the second half and Colombia started to play better, some argies started to look tired (like Riquelme and Cambiasso) and Colombia controlled the ball for a long time. Colombian first goal was at the 63rd minute after a nice free kick. Bustos was the scorer. Then D. Moreno (who replaced T. Moreno) scored 20 minutes later (83rd).

Here you have some highlights

I have to say again that Colombia didn’t play that well, but we deserved the victory (just because Argentina played worse than us). It’s always good to win a game (even better when you beat a team like argentinian one), but I’m still concerned about Pinto’s stubborness (Castrillón was again on the starters) and the lack of goal, we scored twice today but one of the goals was a free kick.

Just for the record, here are the starters on both teams.

Colombia: Agustín Julio; Rubén Darío Bustos, Walter Moreno, Aquivaldo Mosquera, Estíven Vélez; Jaime Castrillón (Grisales), Carlos Alberto Sánchez, José Amaya, David Ferreira (Torres); Tressor Moreno (D. Moreno), Wason Rentería.

Goals: Rubén Darío Bustos (63m), Dayro Moreno (83m)

Booked: Jaime Castrillón, José Amaya, Aquivaldo Mosquera, Rubén Darío Bustos y Wason Rentería.

Argentina: Roberto Abbondanzieri; Hugo Ibarra, Martín Demichelis, Gabriel Milito, Javier Zanetti; Javier Mascherano, Cambiasso (Rodríguez), Fernando Gago, Juan Román Riquelme; Lionel Messi y Carlos Tévez.

Goal: Messi (35m)

Booked: Martín Demichelis, Juan Román Riquelme, Gabriel Milito

Sent Off: Carlos Tévez.

Pinto’s lineup was the one I gave on my previous post, so there were no surprises on the pitch. Colombia played well during the first minutes of the game but the ref made a big mistake and didn’t give a penalty to us after a harsh foul from Vallenilla to Castrillón (it was minute one I think). Later on the game Colombia looked confused, like they didn’t know what to do when they had the ball, and Venezuela were just waiting on his own side of the field and didn’t even get closer to Colombian keeper. Aldo Ramirez wasn’t the man who plays on Atlético Nacional and got lost on the mid field but wasn’t the only one was playing badly, Castrillón and Vélez were disappointing too. The first half ended with Colombia having the ball.

On the second half Torres substituted Ramirez and the team started to play well (just like in the beginning of the game), Colombia were close to score when Torres gave a very good pass to Falcao, and his shot hit the post. Unfortunately, Falcao suffered and injury on that play and was replaced by T. Moreno. With Moreno and Torres, Colombia controlled the ball and attacked Venezuela for a long time, so Venezuela’s coach (Richard Paez) did a couple of substitution to gain some mark on the mid field. Castrillón continued to play awful (he missed some incredible chances to score) and everyone on the stadium started to chant Grisale’s name. we all expected that Pinto will substitute Castrillón with Grisales but he’s stubborn like a mule and replaces Sánchez (who played a really good game).

Then it happened. On the 80th minute, Venezuela made a foul near the penalty area and Rubén Bustos took the free kick… with a nice scorcher he scored a fantastic goal. After that, the only play that deserves to be mentioned was an amazing save by Colombian keeper Julio in the end of the game.

We won and now we have 5 points in 3 matches, but there are some things that concerns me:

• Lack of goal. We made some good plays and we have some nice forwards, but we just scored one goal in 3 matches and it was from a free kick.
• Lack of commitment. Some players seems to be suffering of this, I don’t know if they don’t realize what are they playing for….
• Falcao’s injury. Seems like he is not going be able to play on Tuesday’s game against Argentina.
• Pinto’s stubborness. Give me a break, everyone knows that Castrillón is a good player, but he’s been playing awfully lately. When is Pinto going to notice that? He shouldn’t play against Argentina.

That’s all for the moment, I will give my thoughts about Tuesday’s game on Monday.

[Image by Felipe Caicedo via eltiempo.com]

These seems to be the squad who will play tomorrow:

• Goalkeeper: Julio (Tolima)
• Defenders: Bustos (Gremio, Bra), Moreno (Cúcuta Deportivo), Mosquera (Sevilla, Spa), Velez (Atlético Nacional)
• Midfielders: Sánchez (Valenciennes, Fra), Amaya (Atlético Nacional), Castrillón (Medellín), Ramírez (Atlético Nacional)
• Forwards: Falcao (River Plate, Arg), Rentería (Strasbourg, Fra)

It’s almost the same 11-men who started the game against Brazil one month ago, there are just 2 different players: Bustos instead of Zuñiga (Atlético Nacional, injured) and Ramírez instead of Ferreira (Paranaense, Bra, but he will be surely on the bench).

I would play with Grisales (Colón, Arg) instead of Castrillón, he’s much better and we need this kind of player to beat a team like Venezuela, hopefully he will play on second half. We should win tomorrow and I will be really disappointed if we lose.

I got tickets today so I’m going to attend to the game

The list includes 5 new players: Amaranto Perea, Tressor Moreno, Rubén Bustos, Macnelly Torres and Dayro Moreno. Nobody expected that T. Moreno were called after the problems he had in the past with Pinto. ‘he wants to come back’ told Pinto about Moreno’s call.

I’d had liked to watch Angel back to the Colombian team, but he suffered a concussion in the last Saturday game against New England, and the doctors said he would need some time to fully recover. Anyhow, I really don’t understand why Pinto still calls a player like Hugo Rodallega, I don’t think he’d be a solution to the lack of goal that our team is suffering, I’d rather called someone like Carmelo Valencia (who played against Bolivia and did well) or even Carlos Hidalgo (from Deportivo Pasto).

Rubén Bustos was called to replace injured Zuñiga (Atlético Nacional), so I hope he do a great job and play like he played on 2007 Libertadores Cup with Cúcuta Deportivo (he’s currently playing in Brazil’s Gremio). I think he will play with Velez (Atlético Nacional) as wingbacks against Venezuela, but Vallejo and Arizala will play against Argentine since they’re more defensive guys.

Dayro Moreno (Once Caldas) was finally called after his impressive numbers this season, when he has scored 15 goals in 18 matches and is currently the top scorer of Colombian league. Amaranto Perea was called after he missed first 2 matches due an injury, but I really doubt he would make it to the 11 starters, since guys like Aquivaldo Mosquera and Walter Moreno seems to be in better shape.

Here are the 22 players on Pinto’s list:

Goalkeepers: Agustin Julio (Tolima), Robinson Zapata (Steaua Bucharest, Rom)

Defenders: Aquivaldo Mosquera (Sevilla, Spa), Luis Amaranto Perea (Atlético Madrid, Spa), Walter Moreno (Cúcuta), Rubén Bustos (Gremio, Bra), Gerardo Vallejo (Tolima), Estiven Vélez (Atlético Nacional), Javier Arizala (Tolima)

Midfielders: Carlos Sánchez (Valenciennes, Fra), Jose Amaya (Atlético Nacional), Freddy Grisales (Colón, Arg), Jorge Banguero (America), Jaime Castrillon (Independiente Medellin), David Ferreira (Atlético Paranaense, Bra), Aldo Leao Ramirez (Atletico Nacional), Macnelly Torres (Cucuta)

Forwards: Radamel Falcao Garcia (River Plate, Arg), Hugo Rodallega (Necaxa, Mex), Tressor Moreno (San Luis, Mex), Wason Renteria (Strasbourg, Fra), Dayro Moreno (Once Caldas)

Maybe this is the team on Pinto’s mind for Venezuela’s game: Julio; Bustos, W. Moreno, Mosquera, Vélez; Sánchez, Amaya, Castrillón, T. Moreno; Falcao, Rentería. Let’s see what happens in the next days.

 Addendum: I had’t noticed yet but Cristian Zapata (Udinese, Ita) is not in the list… I wonder why Pinto thinks W. Moreno is better than Zapata.