Struggles in Attack: The Peruvian National Team’s Offensive Woes

Gunpowder is urgently sought. The defeat of the Peruvian team in the last minute against Brazil caused annoyance among the fans and immediately unleashed a ‘witch hunt’ to find culprits, where the most targeted was striker Raúl Ruidíaz. Although coach Juan Reynoso tried to find positive points after the match, the cold numbers are scary in the face of what will be the next match, no less than in Santiago against a Chile that also arrives beaten.

The statistics highlight the Peruvian team’s shots on goal and tell us that in these first two rounds of the Qualifiers we have not had any and therefore we are, along with Paraguay, the two teams in ‘target’ in terms of goals. We never force the Paraguayan Carlos Coronel or the Brazilian Ederson into an intervention that requires their gloves. Zero. They had a great time.

In Paraguay we took five shots, but none of them tested the goalkeeper’s reflexes. The clearest shot was that of Paolo Guerrero that shook the crossbar and there was another, after a counterattack, that Andy Polo executed and ended up off the field. The rest of us hit the ball and almost sent it to one of the popular stands.

The comparison with the clash against Paraguay for the 2022 World Cup Qualifiers is great. In that match, the ‘Blanquirroja’ shot ten times on goal and two of those chances ended in goals from André Carrillo. What changed? Perhaps Juan Reynoso’s new scheme orders us a lot, but it limits us in attack.

Against Paraguay we were more concerned with defending than with finishing at the rival goal (Photo: AFP)

Let’s move on to the clash against the Brazilians. On Tuesday night at the Nacional, the national team also failed to trouble Manchester City goalkeeper Ederson. Just a shot from Wilder Cartagena that was too high or those attempted long passes that none of our forwards reached.

Peru neutralized Brazil until the 90th minute, kept a goalless draw, but ended up losing the match

Let’s go back to the past. In the Qatar 2022 Qualifiers and playing in Lima against ‘Scratch’ we totaled seven shots at the goal that Weverton defended at that time. On two occasions, with André Carrillo and Renato Tapia, we managed to defeat it although the match ended 4-2 in favor of the ‘Canarinha’.

The Peruvian team and the reasons for its poor offensive

Against the Paraguayans, Juan Reynoso continued with the well-known 4-2-3-1 formation that Ricardo Gareca used, but it went very poorly for us. Paolo Guerrero was isolated, behind him Christofer Gonzales played terrible, André Carrillo was lost and Andy Polo was more concerned with helping to take care of the right sector.

Paolo Guerrero sacrifices himself, holds the ball and fights, but does not score (Photo: Jesús Saucedo / @photo.gec)

Against Brazil, the coach applied a 4-4-2 with Carrillo as the second striker, but he showed that he did not have a goal, while Paolo Guerrero ‘chambeó’ holding the ball, but not shooting at the rival goal. Regarding those who entered, Joao Grimaldo was closer to the wing, Raúl Ruidíaz did not receive a single pass and Alex Valera entered for a few minutes.

Another detail is that with the retreat of Renato Tapia to the defense we lost an element that finishes well from afar. Nobody did it in the second half in Ciudad del Este or in the entire match against Brazil. Nominally we have attacking men, but reality says that none of them have a goal under their belts.

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2023-09-13 19:09:00
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