Colombia National Team: Gabriel Meluk talks about criticism of the team – International Football – Sports

The insecurity happens because a month ago the same thing was said, because the same was known, because the obligation was the same: touch. Yes, it’s time to beat Ecuador in Barranquilla, it was repeated ad nauseam. And so, Colombia it did not. A rather pale 0-0, with little football and a lot of grit. As it has been for a long time.

And it must be reiterated, time after time, that this Tuesday they must beat Paraguay, in Barranquilla. Victory is almost mandatory to keep the ranking scores ever narrower as Qatar World Cup 2022.

(Also read: And without Wílmar Barrios, who recovers to attack in Colombia?).

The match against Chile, the last great reference

Hopefully the Colombian National Team will have a match as round as the 3-1 victory over Chile, which was just two months ago and which seems so far away, as if it had been played a pile of years ago.

And since I am talking about years, because for many commentators and fans we walk in a circle, we find the same stones. Sorry: we tripped over the same stones.

Before, to Pékerman They criticized him even badly because he supposedly was ultra-defensive and cowardly against England, in the match that was drawn 1-1 and that cost the elimination of the World Cup in Russia in the shoot-off on penalties, when Uribe and Bacca erred.

Before, to Queiroz They blamed him for being super defensive, that his back was the best, but his attack was short because he created little, because he played without point guard, without 10: James was a forward on the right.

Pékerman was also condemned in the final stretch of his tenure because the generation of the game was not fluid or abundant (except in the 3-0 game over Poland in the World Cup) and that they were in an obvious better moment James (when he was not injured) and Quintero. In the tie, even Cardona played. And Square always was.

(Also: Djokovic went crazy: that’s how he celebrated Serbia’s first leg to the Qatar World Cup).

They told those Pékerman and Queiroz teams that they were lukewarm, that they supposedly did not have leaders who would make them respect them on the pitch. I remember that after the defeat with Japan 1-2, Falcao and Abel Aguilar put their faces in Russia: they were the bosses of the squad.

Before we also dismounted by the ears of the parties blaming the referees, like the American Mark Geiger in the duel that one against England.

Criticism of the technicians: history repeated

Now, Reinaldo Rueda suffers the same criticism that Pékerman and Queiroz suffered from the same commentators and fans: that he is very defensive, that there is no creation of the game so, in apparent consequence, there is no goal, that there are no leaders in the game. group, that when it was not Pitana, it is Tobar … The same stones, the same trees. We walk in a circle, Kimosabi!

And we crash again because in football the most important thing is the footballers, not the coaches, a very serious distortion of the adoring press and cult of the coaches. Today we have needed the cracs. At least one. You see: when Díaz appeared, Colombia was a podium in the Copa América and beat Chile very well.
Three very different technicians with identical evils. Then…? They are the same base players!

I insist that you have to put your feet on the ground and understand that we have a size M team, even if it is believed that it is XL, which is between fourth and seventh in the area.

This Sunday, Jorge Barraza, a page and cover partner, with a dispassionate external vision, sang it clearly in his ‘Ultimo tango’: “In Colombia there is an overestimation of their own capacities and an underestimation of those of the neighbors”.

(In other news: The harsh criticism of a Chilean player to coach Reinaldo Rueda).

The Selection is measured hand in hand with its peers such as Paraguay, which TOCA beat this Tuesday, in Barranquilla. The scare is that against Ecuador, in the same, it was not possible.

Meluk tells him …

Gabriel Meluk
Sports Editor
@MelukLeCuenta