“It was known in advance”: why it is so difficult to choose a coach to coach in the Qualifiers | ANALYSIS

Of course, Gareca is not the only professional who can lead Peru. But he was the perfect guy. He had it and he longed to stay there. Reynoso was not chosen as a superior option. It was what he had at hand, perhaps the most economical. And he is possibly the opposite of Gareca in terms of personality and, above all, in playing style. He is defensive, something that is not used more in today’s football. Defending went out of fashion. With few exceptions, everyone attacks. The first three of the current qualifying round -Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia- attack. The top clubs in the world – Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Real Madrid – are offensive. Not just them, all of them. In England, even Brentford is ahead. Girona leads in Spain in proposing.

After the sixth date of the World Cup, the leadership had no choice, despite themselves, but to release Reynoso. The damage inflicted is of biblical proportions. Peru lost its line of play, the prestige it had achieved, the romance of the fans and players with the national team, and lost 16 of the 18 points it played for. He also left a goal in the box. And he is last. In a Qualifier that will qualify six or perhaps seven teams, they will have to achieve an unprecedented feat to obtain a ticket to the World Cup, which will be played in the United States and which, given the number of Peruvian residents in that country, would be local in all matches. It also lost, not a minor detail, some sponsors that had been obtained in the previous stage, attracted by the success of the selection. And now they will have to face a million-dollar compensation with the outgoing coach. In other words, he will end up paying himself much more than what Gareca was paid. Ruin business no matter how you look at it.

Someone will say that Reynoso at least produced a renewal. Neither. Late, when he was already leaving, he put Quispe, Grimaldo, Zanelatto, Bryan Reyna. He had no other choice. Now we have to gather the rubble and start from scratch. Or one. And attention, there are 12 dates left, but among those 12 are Argentina and Brazil outside…

The great Colombia

Few had Néstor Lorenzo as a coach. He had a short experience in Melgar. There he went to Colombia to look for the man who completely changed the face and mood of Colombia. He was a fighting, strong defender, Lorenzo. As a coach he is the counterfigure: he likes well-played football, close, to the touch, with an offensive mentality. He optimized all the players, he recovered James Rodríguez, he is doing a moderate renovation, because he also does not have ten young talents that are knocking on the door. The keys to this third-and only undefeated Colombia with 12 points out of 18: a) they play well forward, in the rival field; b) has a lot of possession and ball circulation to wear down the opponent; c) presses high, a few meters from the opponent’s area to, once again with the ball, be close to the other goal; d) reaches the goal through elaboration, through collective functioning, not through individual arrests. He still doesn’t have a scorer, but he replaces him with team harmony. Someone comes and puts it in. Note that Lorenzo does not have a golden generation, he does have good players who are magnificently used. He didn’t inherit anyone’s team, he doesn’t have super talents, the credit is all his.

Lorenzo’s first fundamental change was that of the central midfielder: he removed Wilmar Barrios, a very efficient recovery player with great brand intuition, but ultimately a blocking midfielder, and replaced him with Kevin Castaño, who also removes, but above all is the clean exit of the team, excellent distributor with foot pass. And towards the front. The team flourished. Even Jefferson Lerma, who was a war tank, dares to play alongside Kevin. It was an ideological message: let’s play football. By the way, Peru had Lorenzo there, at home.

The leader Messi

There was almost no time to celebrate in Argentina. Twenty minutes after the Albiceleste’s victory over Brazil in Maracaná, with smiles still on the Argentine faces, Lionel Scaloni dropped a bomb: he threatened to leave. Textually: “I need to think a lot about what I’m going to do. It’s not goodbye or much, but I need to think, because the bar is very high and it’s difficult to continue, and to continue winning, and these guys make it difficult. “It’s time to think about this time, I will tell the president and the players later because this National Team needs a coach who has all the energy possible and who is well.”

However, it is not a football or energy issue, this is something that is said at the end of a tournament, not at the beginning and when a four-year contract has just been renewed. It doesn’t close. It is the same argument that Bielsa presented to Julio Grondona in 2004 to resign from his position as national coach. Bielsa said that he did not have the energy to continue. In reality, he no longer tolerated Grondona.

The rumor that flooded the halls says that, among many other attitudes that the coach did not like, the president of the AFA, Claudio Tapia, close to the Government, would have asked Scaloni for public support for the official candidate Sergio Massa, including a photo with this, to which Scaloni not only refused, but was very displeased. Tapia understands that Scaloni is his work, that he was selected when no one knew him and that Scaloni owes him eternal gratitude. There is something else: Scaloni protests because they paid him the World Cup prize in the official dollar (in pesos) and not with a dollar bill. In that scandal that is the Argentine economy, it must be interpreted like this: if one must receive a million dollars and they pay you at the official exchange rate, in truth they are giving you 350,000.

Scaloni is an illumination, a discovery, a precious stone the size of a number five found among the ruins of a mansion. There is no other Scaloni and Tapia knows it, which is why he will try in every possible way to convince him to continue. It is his discovery, his stellar success, his presentation credentials. It is not known if he will succeed. But, if the departure of the coach who made Argentina play best in its entire history is confirmed, an unforgettable era would abruptly come to an end, in which he won everything with brilliant football. And Tapia, politically, would become a role in the wind.

Ecuador from behind

Unanimity is what the Catalan Félix Sánchez attracts: no one likes how he makes Ecuador play. Twitter is a cry in that sense. “Ecuador doesn’t play anything”, “All their games are boring”, “Individualities save us”, “There is no tactical approach”, “No direction”, “It seems as if the players knew each other since yesterday”, “There is no strategy”. “I have no idea about the game, choose the players poorly, at any moment everything will fall due to its weight, these results are liars.” “The notable crop of footballers we have is not taken advantage of.” And Ecuador had won and had 8 points (on the court they won 11, although 3 were deducted as a penalty for the Byron Castillo scam). This reflects that “I prefer to play badly and win” is not so literal. The fan also cares about how. Today, just by knowing the result of Ecuador, he is enough. It is not essential to watch the game, it does not add anything.

Follies in Uruguay

Marcelo Bielsa had twenty-seven days in total to train with the Uruguayan players since he took office last June. They were enough to put together a team that, along with Colombia, are the two revelations of this World Cup. The same can be said of Néstor Lorenzo. If the message is clear, understanding does not take long. They are the two teams that play the best, besides Argentina. The other event of the competition is in charge of Venezuela, happy to have Fernando Batista on the bench. We don’t see it falling like Vinotinto, it will continue to add up, little by little, but that’s how you get to Rome. Óscar Tabárez did not spare his praise for Bielsa: “I was amazed by how he played against Argentina.”

All of Chile shoots against its national team. After drawing against Paraguay Eduardo Berizzo resigned, but nothing improved: then they lost to Ecuador and the negative comments intensified. Says Danilo Díaz, a prominent Chilean colleague: “As always, by decree it was established that Chile was ready to fight at the top of the classification, with that logic of the rich who become impoverished and do not assume their new status. We obviously did not go to the last two World Cups and that heading to Qatar we finished seventh, comfortably. In that desire to believe that there are plenty of arguments to overcome any adversary – to which the Golden Generation accustomed us – we forget where we are. Here we live an unreality. Berizzo was doing a great job. His Chile was an orderly, intense, well-functioning team (they did not score goals in Santiago), with a clear idea, but that lacked two fundamental conditions for high performance: talent and individual imbalance. ” Chile seriously fears missing its third World Cup in a row.

In Brazil they already doubt Fernando Diniz, although he has just won the Libertadores with Fluminense. The 0-1 against Argentina represents Brazil’s third consecutive defeat in the Qualifiers, which has never happened before. And it is also his first fall at home in this competition since 1954. It is no longer surprising. There is not a single super star in a team that was previously full of geniuses. The lineup that Diniz presented included an army of common players, who make no difference: the full-backs Emerson and Carlos Augusto (very poor), the midfielders André and Bruno Guimaraes, Nino, Raphael Veiga, Douglas Luiz, Joelinton, and some with a poster, but of poor performance, like Raphinha. That after playing six qualifying games, Venezuela is fourth and Brazil sixth seems like something out of a postmodern movie, but it is the current reality. And it shows how football’s tectonic plates have moved.

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