In their last seven games, Millonarios lost 5 and drew 2. In fact, their last joy dates back to a month ago, on September 21, when they beat Junior 1-0 in Barranquilla by Liga Betplay.
They spent five games postponing the classification and from the lead the off-hook is in 7th place in the table, with 29 units. All have gone straight while the blue stagnated in results, in football, in attitude. How to explain the crisis of the team that showed the most attractive game at the start of the competition?
FUTBOLRED consulted experts to understand where the offensive, lethal and suffocating football that aroused the envy of many in the Betplay League went. These were our questions and below are the answers of the blue bewilderment.
Questions: How to explain the impossibility of Millonarios to certify their classification for home runs after having been the best team in the Betplay League: what is the reason for the block?
Expert Answers:
Gabriel Meluk
Sports editor of El Tiempo
1. Millionaires, even when he was a leader, he had effectiveness problems. In Dimayor’s table, at the beginning of the championship, he was tenth, and he was the leader: he created a lot for the goals he scored. Between August and September, Gómez scored it, the two Ruis, Macalister and the players improved their effectiveness, but in the last month they were exposed again, basically because in the last 7 games, against América and Santa Fe, they scored goals but did not achieve results and that liquidated them, it was a blow. Against America Macalister had 3-11 and came out 2-2 and against Santa Fe, after winning 2-0, they lost 3-2 in the last ten minutes. The team did not get up from that.
The problem is that in October the team relapsed into their lack of effectiveness and that influenced one thing in the game: to find themselves again, they tried to stick to their style of having the ball and there they made a mistake because the pressure was changed for slowness at the time to keep the ball; the clear example was the match against Tolima. The fastest was Pereira, but he made the team slow and in that slowness the team became slow, predictable. If the team has an effectiveness problem and creates fewer options, that’s the perfect storm.
Tito Puccetti
Narrator and analyst for DirecTV and Win Sports
Millonarios is a team with a very strong project, a very clear idea, but we got used to it and it gave the feeling that it was a great payroll when, if we analyze position by position, perhaps the only player with a different background, experience and conditions is the goalkeeper , who has been incredibly wrong, in this streak that began with his expulsion against Once Caldas. From there he started a downturn in his performance, in results it was a little later. Millonarios is not the best team in the Betplay League, it is the best idea and the best project, but when it does not have the best payroll, any small condition ends up complicating the team, and since it has very, very few players, a small downturn, depending on of such young players, who were figures and scored goals, because there are important reasons there.
Nicholas Samper
Analyst at RCN Radio, ESPN and columnist for FUTBOLRED
That those who are in charge of getting out of the script are completely turned off. Both Ruiz and Gómez left their soccer in the locker room for several dates and having individualities that are not fine, makes Gamero’s plan become repetitive and without repentamiento. And it is a team very attached to its script, with no option to imagine something different.
Julian Capera
ESPN analyst and columnist for FUTBOLRED
There are several reasons: first, during an important part of the tournament he could not count on his main team because there was always someone absent, Juan Pablo Vargas with Costa Rica, Llinás and Montero in the Colombian National Team, then Daniel Ruiz and Andrés Gómez; the injury of Larry Vásquez, and that ratifies that Millonarios has one of the best 11 in the country, for me he still has it, but not so many alternatives on the substitute bench due to the absence of players. It also coincides with an individual soccer drop in most of the pieces that remained during that time and probably with some relaxation when the classification felt so close, perhaps it slowed down a little and when they wanted to resume it was not so easy.
Question: When it comes to blaming, what is up with coach Alberto Gamero and what with players like Daniel and Luis Carlos Ruiz, Andrés Gómez, Montero, Silva and other figures?
Gabriel Meluk
It is evident that the great responsibility lies with the players, Gamero had already had this problem and, on the contrary, he has been praised for the ways and manners of his team, for the intention to play attack, to put pressure on the rival, but there was a slump of the players who did not put it back. There are three teams to which the same thing happens: the Yankees, the Colombian National Team of Reinaldo Rueda and Millonarios.
Tito Puccetti
It is an atypical situation for Millonarios because it depends on Andrés Gómez who is 20 years old, on Luis Carlos Ruiz who lasted two years without playing, he comes from being a scorer for a team that went down, and that is very different and gave him space to do goals, Daniel (Ruiz), another boy who is beginning to live. Montero does have responsibility if he appears. Silva always played well and was a good leader. He is living a normal situation, it is normal for Millonarios to have these problems, apparently due to the fall, but a month and a half ago nobody in the general public of the country knew who Dewar Victoria was, if you analyze position by position, Millonarios has very little payroll and If the head of Vargas, one of the main ones, is in Qatar, one can understand why Millonarios is in these problems.
Nicholas Samper
Everyone is to blame in this process. Gameron bears the responsibility of not having a clear plan B when plan A fails; Luis Carlos Ruiz not so much: he was not signed as a scorer. He is a player who scores goals who is different and has done his thing. Silva and Ruiz have entered into constant irregularity, just like Gomez and Montero, as a goalkeeper, he has not yet shown with Millonarios the importance of signing him.
Julian Capera
Shared responsibility. Of the directors because they have not put together a team that has sufficient alternatives to supply those casualties that we are talking about. Responsibility of Gamero that accepts a team in these conditions and has not found tactical alternatives to get out of this pothole. And perhaps the biggest of the players because despite the mistakes of managers and coaching staff, the only ones who have the ability to twist the path or straighten it are them, who go to the field.
Question: Will it be enough for Millonarios to qualify for home runs and, more than that, to win the League as expected until September, when the downturn came?
Gabriel Meluk
I wouldn’t know what to say… in theory, by winning one of the remaining two, they should qualify, against Medellin it’s hand in hand and against them for the Colombia Cup they played very well in Medellin and won 2-0, but they had a scare in Bogota and with the effectiveness that Millonarios found in Ruiz, he managed to tie. If Millonarios finds that, one of the two will win, a rival that they eliminated in the Cup, in theory, winning one of the two should enter.
Tito Puccetti
I think they’re going to qualify, but they’re going to have problems, the fans are going to have a lot of anguish in these two games, this situation is going to serve to see that despite having the project, getting out of trouble, dominating other teams, all that He made us speak so highly of Millonarios, the player lives in his own flesh that to be a champion in Colombia it is useless, we will have to lower our heads, come back from below to try to be a champion, this beautiful three-year project, good football, getting applause from rival fans is going to be very lame, because I know our culture and our fans, if you don’t have a title. This will serve him for the finals and the second game against Junior, because the people in seven games abandoned him, the people in 7 games abandoned a three-year process, they left Millonarios alone, very few continue to support him and that must be understood by the player if he doesn’t win.
Nicholas Samper
I wish. What happens is that due to his current way of playing, it doesn’t seem to be enough for him, more so with the missing rivals: Medellín, who with the draw against Jaguares was left with an obligation, and Alianza, who in previous cups has eliminated Millonarios. Barranca Bermeja is not a simple plaza.
Julian Capera
I still believe that Millonarios is going to qualify, the savings allow him to continue having great possibilities in this League auction, a local game even against a brave rival and one against the poorest that have been seen in this League, which is Alianza Oil company, so I think Millonarios will qualify. And after that another championship starts, we have had examples of teams that ride the entire tournament and are champions and others that go through the window, others that have a bad streak but manage to qualify and are champions, recently Nacional, when the last tournament, he had 5 or 6 games without winning, then he was champion. The important thing is to get involved no matter what, still playing ugly, and then be aware that another tournament is starting again and is on equal terms with the others who qualify.
