Colombia will face its counterpart from Honduras this Sunday (Fort Lauderdale, USA, 5:00 pm Colombian time) in order to prepare for the duels against Peru and Argentina for the Qatar 2022 Qualifiers.
It is true that they will not be the same players in one game and the other, but the strategy has an identical objective: to solve the thorny problem of the goal, the one that has not arrived for five games.
In the 19 players there is enthusiasm, the desire to reach that double day, a lot of optimism. But only two seem to have a sealed ticket to Barranquilla for that key moment: Miguel Borja and Juan Fernando Quintero. World Cup players, experienced, with the confidence of the DT and a low level of competition, arrive at the event in almost identical conditions. The only thing that differentiates them is their role in Rueda’s plan: one will score the goals, the other will celebrate them.
They already did a first rehearsal in the concentration of the last days, when the National Team faced Junior and Quintero served Borja with an assist.
The fact is that this is by no means new: they have coincided for nine years, specifically since the South American Sub 20 in 2013, in which they emerged champions and qualified for the World Cup in Turkey.
The good feeling is that when both have been together on the field, things have gone well for Colombia: they have six wins, two draws and two losses. The pending debt is that, in official competition matches, their connection has ended in a goal in only one game: the 6-0 victory against Bolivia in the South American Sub 20, when Quintero served both goals to Borja.
“I have a great friendship with Miguel Borja, I’ve known him for a long time from the youth teams. He’s a striker who leaves us calm because of his movements and his definitions,” said the man from Antioquia about the Cordovan in his last press conference.
The friends met again at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, when Colombia reached the round of 16 and was eliminated by England. Now is a new era but the same headache: the goal. Against Honduras it will be 90 minutes to oil the machine and distribute passes and goals. Forbidden to fail!
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