“Football is not that complicated. It’s about putting the ball in the opposite goal”. Carlos Salvador Bilardo.
With the defeat against Peru last Friday in Barranquilla, the team led by Reinaldo Rueda completed six games without scoring a goal. A negative record that reflects the terrible problem of generating offensive football that afflicts our team. The saddest thing of all is that because of this problem, Colombia is very close to being eliminated from the World Cup.
What responsibility does Reinando Rueda have with this situation? Answer: absolutely all responsibility. How is it possible that after drawing in Barranquilla with Ecuador and Paraguay, against rivals who lived to lock themselves in the last third of the field, Rueda does not try to change the tactical module at all for the match against Peru? How is it possible that, after 20 minutes of the game against Peru, where we see that the Peruvians are locked up in the last quarter of the field, Rueda leaves 4 defenders and 2 brand midfielders and does not try to put more men in attack? Worse yet: the first 45 minutes of the game went by without creating a single direct shot on the Peruvian goal. It is inconceivable that Rueda has not tried (at least tried) a change of module different from the one everyone already knows: Cuadrado on the right, Luís Díaz on the left, James in the center, Falcao at the top and Santos Borré on the “false nine”. Terribly predictable this Colombian Selection of Rueda. On Friday, against Peru, we saw exactly the same module as against Paraguay and against Ecuador. Only a few small changes of names, but not of operation, but not of module, but not of tactical approach. How on earth did Rueda expect to get any different result against Peru, if he came out to play exactly the same game as against Paraguay and Ecuador?
Reinaldo Rueda disappointed me to the bone. I did believe in him when he was appointed technical director of the national team. I did see in him the person capable of taking us to the World Cup in Qatar. Studied in Germany, he went through the entire process of lower divisions in Colombia, took Ecuador and Honduras to the World Cup, won the Copa Libertadores with Nacional. I did think he was ready to make us dream of the Colombian National Team. What a big disappointment! He directed the match against Peru as an amateur coach. He made beginner mistakes. He stubbornly clung to a stingy approach that had already proven unsuccessful in attack. They spent 45 minutes against Peru without creating a single goal option and for the second half, do you go out with the same team? Not to believe And at 65 minutes (sixty-five minutes!) makes 2 changes to add one more brand midfielder and thus leave 3 midfielders like Mateus Uribe, Barrios and Álzate? Incredible! Did we need to continue with 6 men in the rear with the rival crouching in his own goal? Not to believe so much pettiness and so much stinginess.
We were drawing at home the game we had to win to go to the World Cup and were we starving with a full fridge? What a disappointment! Please do not come to say that you were unlucky. Two shots on goal in 90 minutes is not due to a lack of luck. It is for lack of offensive arguments. And even worse: this match had already been played exactly the same in the 0-0 against Paraguay and in the 0-0 against Ecuador. It only demonstrates an absolute inability of the technician to find the variants, to try at least one change of approach.
What Luís Díaz had in mind when signing for Liverpool? Please! It was too easy to mark him. Gareca ordered two guys on him throughout the match. Luís Díaz is good when he has space, when he comes from behind. Gareca gave neither the space nor the opportunity to dribble his marking. He double-branded it and annulled it. He could not have signed for Liverpool and the game was exactly the same. It was not a mental problem. Rueda didn’t try anything different with him, not even change bands, not even that. Always glued to the left, looking for an unproductive wall with Mojica. Too predictable. Rueda made the match too easy for Gareca.
Reinaldo Rueda looked insecure, fearful, timorous and stingy. Not only in the match against Peru, but in all the previous games in which the ball was not put into the opposite goal either. Incredible to play in such a defensive way and without variants when you have at your disposal the quality of players that our country has today. This is called “mismanagement of human resources”. It is with great pain that I write today: three dates before the end of the tie, our team is very close to being eliminated. And the main culprit, without the slightest doubt, has his own name: Reinaldo Rueda.
