To regain faith: Why Peruvian fans no longer believe in World Cup qualification according to the Datum Internacional survey | INFOGRAPHIC

It is time to believe again and to do so the Peruvian team must be up to the task of battling in La Paz and shaking off the pressure of playing in Lima. There are more than six points at stake, the Bicolor also puts on the table the thin thread that still unites it with the fans after only adding one point in the first four rounds of the Qualifiers.

“I don’t want empathy with the team to be lost,” said Juan Carlos Oblitas in his only public appearance a few weeks ago, and his words pointed to the discontent that exists over what Juan Reynoso’s team has been doing, a discomfort that is reflected in the latest Datum survey for El Comercio.

These are three questions that hit hard within Videna. The selection that once united Peruvians today discourages a large part of them. According to Datum, 69% of respondents do not believe that Peru will qualify for the 2026 World Cup.

This pessimism is very surprising, since these Qualifiers are different from the previous ones and offer 6.5 places for the World Cup event in Mexico, the United States and Canada, that is, two more than the last two editions in which we reached the playoffs.

However, the fact of having only one point out of a possible twelve – a draw against Paraguay in the debut – means that the team’s task is to row uphill in this competition, which is why it is forced to score against Bolivia on Thursday in La Peace and next Tuesday in Lima against the competitive Venezuela.

The designated

“I hope the fan sees that above any situation or proper name is the bicolor shield,” asks Juan Reynoso himself. The thing is that the coach knows that he is the one directly blamed for the Bicolor’s bad moment.

The fact is that 76% of those surveyed consider that he should leave the position of coach, having greater rejection from the male fans (80%) than from the female fans (71%).

And this figure agrees with the desire of 77% of the fans to see Ricardo Gareca again in charge of the national team. Since he left office after falling in the 2022 playoffs, the ‘Tigre’ went on to manage Vélez Sarsfield without success, and now he has no club. In fact, his presence on Peruvian soil is constant due to his commercial ties with a banking company. Even in one of his last presentations he responded to Reynoso’s criticism of the physical level of the local soccer players.

“Don’t Peruvians run? Lie. The Peruvians run. We had checked the Argentine and Brazilian league because I had been in Palmeiras. We had data on what the other leagues were like that are very competitive and we found this fallacy. The Peruvians are at the level of the best leagues,” said the Argentine in a conference.

This is how the week of the Peruvian team begins, with points to score and a fan base to win back.

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