Deportivo Cali final details to finish preparing the first official duel of the second season of 2022, when he faces Melgar from Peru this Wednesday for the first leg of the round of 16 of the Copa Sudamericana, at his stadium in Palmaseca.
For the start of this third week of training, coach Rafael Dudamel was able to count on the entire group, after the arrival of Kevin Velasco last week from his vacation to be with the Colombian National Team until the first days of the month. June and the homegrown players Daniel Luna, Gian Franco Cabezas and Juan José Mina, these three spent one more week with the U-20 National Team in the Maurice Revello tournament and barely joined in the first days of this week.
The group continued to work normally, having more focus on the technical/tactical part and studying videos of their rival in the round of 16 of the South American, who is led by the new coach of the Colombian National Team, Néstor Lorenzo.
On Wednesday the team played a game behind closed doors against Cortuluá, at the Doce de Octubre stadium in the city of Tuluá. For that match, Dudamel was studying a different module with 3 defenders, 5 midfielders and 2 attackers, but the result was not appropriate, since Cali lost 4-0 with goals from Kener Valencia, Kevin Palacios and a brace from Feiver Mercado.
Cali’s lineup was as follows:
William Of Amores; Joseph Caldera, William Burdisso, Germain Mera; Adair Gutierrez, Yony Gonzalez, Carlos Robes, Jimmy Congo, Kevin Velasco; Theophilus Gutierrez, James Mosquera.
The substitutions were: Enrique Camargo for Oaks, Angelo Rodriguez for Burdisso, Miguel Nazarit for Mera and Jhon Vasquez for Gonzalez.
Regarding the duel, Dudamel said that “it remains for me to have tried a different system with different elements, thinking at some point as a visitor, it did not turn out well, but it is time to try, more than with the result, with the physical load that we accumulate with having played 80 minutes and that they are released, one week before the first game for the Copa Sudamericana”.
In the last days of the week, the team was training normally at the sports headquarters for a single day of work, so as not to physically overload the team and to finish consolidating the tactical part.
Juan Andres Arias Arias
Correspondent Futbolred Cali
And Twitter: @ AriasJuan_15
