Four years ago José Pekerman was hailed as the dream maker. Argentinian by birth but adopted by Colombians as one of their own, he stepped off the plane after the Brazil World Cup to a hero’s welcome. Four straight victories had sealed history. Colombia’s joyous football and infectious dancing had helped heal an international reputation long battered by war, drugs and bad news. In front of hundreds of thousands of people who had deliriously spilled into Bogotá’s main park for the welcome-home party, the reticent coach shuffled across the stage to address the nation.
“We’ve a wonderful generation of players,” Pekerman proclaimed. “We’re as good as anyone in the world.” At long last it seemed South America’s second-most populous nation was set to deliver on its immense promise.
Yet things look very different now. Colombia’s calamitous opening three minutes against Japan in Saransk, in which Carlos Sánchez was sent off for handball and Shinji Kagawa turned home the resulting penalty, meant a shock 2-1 defeat. One game down and Colombia are already on the brink. Defeat by Poland in Kazan on Sunday would send Los Cafeteros tumbling home and almost certainly bring the axe down on Pekerman’s six-year reign.
For Colombia’s longest-serving and most successful manager, the Poland game may also ultimately determine how he is remembered.
Back home the jury is still out. While many recognise that playing 87 minutes with 10 men was one of the key reasons behind the defeat, many also argue Pekerman was principally to blame.
“I just don’t understand his team,” the football writer Ivan Mejia says. “It’s just extremely odd and very incoherent. Did he think we were playing a friendly?”
Indeed, three starters – Johan Mojica, Jefferson Lerma, and José Izquierdo – had played only warm-up games for the national team, while the central defensive partnership of Oscar Murillo and Davinson Sánchez was lining up in only their second game together. For a manager like Pekerman, whose managerial mantra had always been forged upon “respecting a process” with eyes fixed on a long-term goal, something did not add up.
Brows were also furrowed on his choice of substitutes. Dragging off an attacking player to shore up a midfield in danger of being overrun, made perfect sense. Wilmar Barrios’s introduction on 31 minutes swung the remainder of the first half firmly in Colombia’s favour. But the choice to remove the experienced winger Juan Cuadrado instead of the ineffectual Izquierdo puzzled.
Yet it was Pekerman’s decision to go on the attack when the score was 1-1 that brought almost universal discord. In 29C heat and under a baking sun, Japan’s extra man was already starting to exacerbate Colombia’s decline. “My changes showed I was not planning to go defensive,” Pekerman claimed. “I still wanted to win the game.” But instead of injecting new life into a jaded midfield, Pekerman’s introduction of a second striker, Carlos Bacca, backfired almost immediately, with Japan scoring four minutes later. It proved a risky and unnecessary gamble.
It was yet another defeat to add to the four games Colombia had failed to win as they crawled across the line for a place in Russia last year. The “wonderful generation” that looked set to turn Colombia into a world footballing power never materialised. Even before the team had landed in Russia the alarm bells were ringing. Poor results and stodgy performances were primarily to blame but other issues also succeeded in withering away Pekerman’s once lofty reputation.
Since signing a new contract on the back of the 2014 World Cup, the 68-year-old coach has become increasingly secretive. For the majority of the year nobody even knows if he is in the country. He has doggedly refused to grant a single interview in six years in charge and has turned to ever greater lengths to wedge distance between his team and everyone else.
Between March and the eve of Colombia’s World Cup debut, Pekerman did not once address the media. Why had he chosen to play only one warm-up match? What of Edwin Cardona, the bad-boy midfielder who had featured in 15 out of 18 qualifiers and yet had now been chopped from Colombia’s final squad? Nobody knew but media frustration was mounting.
Pekerman’s argument has long been that sacrifices were necessary to avoid the chaos and failures of the past. Indeed Faustino Asprilla’s hedonistic tales of how every night was a party during the squad’s short stay at the 1994 World Cup is a cautionary reminder of how far Colombia have come.
But not since Pekerman took over in January 2012 has the mood been so polluted with negativity. As a consequence the murky role of the Argentinian businessman Pascual Lezcano has again been dragged into the spotlight. Despite nothing ever linking Lezcano with anything untoward, rumours persist that the agent, who also represents Pekerman, wields an unhealthy influence on selection.
Working as an intermediary with other agents and always by Pekerman’s side, Lezcano, according to theory, helps players looking to boost their chances of a big transfer get selected. “Is Colombia’s World Cup squad really being picked by agents?” screamed the Cali newspaper El País while pondering the bizarre XI Pekerman picked to face Japan. They were frivolous rumours, nothing more, but Lezcano’s tight relationship with Norman Capuozzo, a Venezuelan who represents two of those playing their first competitive games against Japan, is the latest mud being flung around by journalists smarting from defeat and in a desperate quest to turn silence into answers.
This maelstrom of poor communication, isolation from the media and dirty gossip has been burning for some time. And yet Colombia still have very good reason to believe their nightmare start in Saransk can be buried in the past. Even with 10 men against Japan there were encouraging signs. In contrast to the stale performance Poland delivered against Senegal in their opening defeat, Colombia offered a taste of why they were considered Group H favourites.
While Carlos Sánchez’s one-match suspension means the ferocious Boca star Barrios will be required to step up, the positive news is that the rest of the squad is now at full health.
The biggest boost is that of James Rodríguez, the 2014 World Cup poster boy who was involved in 48% of all Colombia’s goals on the road to Russia. A persistent calf strain limited his role against Japan to half an hour but the No 10 has since returned to training and is keen on recapturing World Cup hero status. Changes are also expected in defence where the experienced head of Cristian Zapata is likely to add steel to the error-prone backline.
One player who will keep his spot, however, is Radamel Falcao, whose rallying call this week was: “It’s either them or it is us.” Colombia’s all-time top scorer’s delayed World Cup debut did not go according to plan. But the Monaco man, who admits he has lost count of the times he has dreamt of scoring at a World Cup, knows that at 32 this could be his last chance to deliver.
If he does, it would repay the patience and trust Pekerman placed in his captain during a torturous two-year spell in England. In the fickle world of Latin American football there is hope yet that Colombia’s mysterious coach may still recover his position as the country’s dream maker.