Thanks Bustos!

We won, we won and I really enjoyed the game. But everything can’t be joy and happiness, I must say that Colombia didn’t play well during the first half and some players did an awful job, that’s disappointing.

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]