After losing three matches in a row, the Peruvian team led by Argentine Ricardo Gareca had no margin for error in the South American qualifier for the Qatar-2022 World Cup.
With Messi pulling the strings and permanently looking for his goal, Argentina defeated Peru 2-0 on Tuesday at the National Stadium in Lima, which closed the fourth date of the regional world championship.
The Inca squad had just lost 2-0 to Chile in Santiago on Friday and 4-2 to five-time champion Brazil in Lima last month, after starting the World Cup on a good foot by drawing 2-2 with Paraguay in Asunción also in October.
The loss at home to Albiceleste set off alarms in Peru, where Gareca is revered by fans after taking the Inca team to Russia-2018 after a 36-year absence from the World Cup.
The Argentine took responsibility for the string of poor results that left his team with a point at the bottom of the standings alongside Bolivia.
“It is a bad start. It is worrying. It’s a situation that worries us, ”Gareca said Tuesday. “We are going to wait for next year. We have all the arguments to be able to reverse this story ”.
“We need to recover what was before, that conviction that Peru has,” added the ‘Tigre’, who has led Peru since 2015.
However, some point out that the qualifier has just started and recall that after the first four dates of the campaign to Russia, Peru was also in ninth place. Then he improved and qualified in the playoffs by beating New Zealand.
“The qualifiers are generally very changeable at some point what happened to us (to another team) can happen to us,” said the ‘Tigre’.
Peru will visit Bolivia in March at the height of La Paz and will receive Venezuela in Lima.
“This is not an easy time. I’m sure time can help us. It’s a very long road, there are 14 games to go, “said Italian-Peruvian striker Gianluca Lapadula, from Benevento in Italy.
Lapadula, who debuted with the Inca jersey against Chile, replaced Raúl Ruidíaz (Seattle Sounders of the USA) in the starting eleven against Argentina, who had been put by Gareca at the head of the Peruvian offensive due to the injury of the striker Paolo Guerrero from Inter de Porto Alegre.
“We are honestly sad. We are not going to lower our heads, we have to work to reverse this situation, ”said forward André Carrillo, from Al Hilal in Saudi Arabia.
The same mistakes
Commentator Eddie Fleischman, from the Full Deportes portal, said that the Peruvian team repeated the mistakes it made against Chile.
“There are many things to rebuild in the selection and the best thing is that there is a pause until March to solve them,” said Fleischman.
“The worrying thing is that the national team is beginning to lag at the bottom of the table,” commented the journalist.
The also journalist Pedro García said that the team is in crisis of results because in 70 games played over the five and a half years Gareca had never lost three times in a row.
The last antecedent where a coach registered three falls in a row with Peru was in 2013 under the direction of Uruguayan Sergio Markarián in qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
“Let’s accept it, we are in crisis,” wrote the journalist on his Twitter account.
“Also, if we played tomorrow we would not know which is the starting team and that is serious. Before it came from memory. Today we are really screwed, ”added García.
Peru’s next game will be on March 25 against Bolivia at the Hernando de Siles in La Paz, a city where it has never won in a qualifying round.
The last time the Inca national team played in that stadium, they lost 2-0 in the qualifiers to Russia-2018. However, a claim to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS) ended up giving the Peruvian team three points.
“For the next date of the qualifying process, there could be the return of two great references, Paolo Guerrero and Jefferson Farfán, who are recovering from their respective injuries. However, there don’t seem to be many lights, ”commented the sports daily Depor.
.
