With only three goals and 40 minutes per game: Paolo’s hierarchy is higher than Valera’s goals

Without the ‘9’ Cagliari goalscorer, Juan Reynoso has to choose between seeing Paolo active again with the Bicolor after 20 months or for the moment Alex Valera, who has scored x goals this 2023.

According to the journalist Jampool Cuadros, who is in Korea following the incidents of the national team tour, Juan Reynoso would have leaned towards Paolo to see him in action for the first time, since the Racing attacker was the great novelty in the call for duels in Asia.

Thus, Paolo will turn around with the Bicolor after almost two years. In October 2021 it was the last game he played, starting against Chile for the Qualifiers. After that, his knee injury complicated him so much, that between 2021 and 2022 he barely played 10 games with Avaí (only four as a starter), until this year when he came to Racing, where he found more continuity.

His moment vs. Valera

This 2023 has already almost doubled the number of minutes he had throughout the past year. With the “Academy” he has played 778 minutes in 19 games, compared to the 427 he achieved in Brazilian soccer.

“Paolo does not need a letter of introduction. Filter, no test. He comes to compete. That is the essence of him, ”said Reynoso, defending the call for the 29-year-old attacker, and it is because of that hierarchy that he would start tomorrow.

Although Guerrero himself said that the coach had told him that “the one who is better will play”, today, the one with the best moment would have to wait on the bench.

Alex Valera has played fewer games with Universitario, 17, but he has scored eleven goals, ten of them in Liga 1 and another in the Sudamericana, and it must be considered that he has not been able to play seven games either because he was suspended or because he was in the national team peruvian

Therefore, if we compare the performance of both, both have been present in almost the same number of games, but while Paolo has played an average of just 42 minutes per game, Alex adds 73 minutes.

There are eight goal differences between the two. It is Alex Valera’s time in Liga 1, but Reynoso bets on how competitive Paolo Guerrero is.

“I think it’s time to see him play at least 60-70 minutes,” says the journalist Diego Rebagliati, who clarifies that the starter will always have to be Lapadula, but in the absence of ‘Bambino’, Paolo must take the option.

“Is slow”

Maybe it’s time to see Paolo for several minutes on the field of play. In May, the latter caused concern in Argentina because he was not considered in two games due to knee pain. When he reappeared he didn’t convince either. “On the court he is very slow. When the team plays badly, it is incapable of generating chances on its own”, Hernando Maderna, an Argentine journalist who covers Racing for the newspaper “Olé”, does not comment. “I was surprised by his call. He doesn’t win many aerial duels or from behind ”; he comments he.

According to SofaScore, in the Copa Libertadores he barely wins 40% of the duels he plays on the grass and 43% of the aerial balls. The average is similar in the Argentine League.

Playing in Juan Reynoso’s eleven requires an optimal physical level to maintain the plan of a lot of pressure and friction that the team proposes. But Paolo can also feel calm about playing again with teammates like Christian Cueva or Yoshimar Yotún, who with a single pass can leave him facing goal. Or rediscover those millimeter passes from Miguel Trauco to surprise the defense.

Today the last training session will take place, already in Busan, and the eleven will be defined there. For now, Paolo Guerrero’s hierarchy is winning the push in attack.

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