Many years ago, perhaps since the qualifying for South Africa 2010, the Colombia selection did not have a scenario as complicated as it is now: with nine points to play for, the team he leads Reinaldo Wheel is outside today Qatar 2022 and he needs to win, win and win to keep his chances of going to his third World Cup in a row.
With a recent past with very few joys (six games without winning and scoring goals), with a very fresh defeat against one of the direct rivals, Peru, at home, and with a mistake by one of the team’s heroes, David Ospina, Colombia faces this Tuesday one of the already classified Qatar, Argentina, which also has 28 games without losing.
(Also read: Historic! Caimanes got into the semifinals of the Caribbean Series)
The group maintains the illusion of classifying
The generation that went to Brazil 2014 and Russia 2018 is not resigned. Think that while there are options, you have to play it. And he clings to the hope that things will improve, he believes that, despite the lack of goals, the team has had good manners and that Argentina, with some important absences due to injuries and suspensions, can be fought hand in hand .
“I’m not going to promise something that I don’t know is going to happen, but I do promise that as long as there are possibilities we will fight until the end”
“I am not going to promise something that I do not know will happen, but I do promise that as long as there are possibilities we will fight until the end. We are going to give ourselves the opportunities and believe that this is possible”, said one of the team leaders, Radamel Falcao Garcia, who came out to show his face on Sunday and try to explain the moment they live.
Falcao, at 35 years old, is not resigned to retiring without playing another World Cup. “For some time now, I have lived here coming to the National Team as if it were one of the last presentations with the team. The National Team doesn’t warn you, you don’t know what could happen. I’ve seen all the scenarios, but with the odds stacked against us, we want to defy those odds, and to do that we have to believe. It doesn’t matter if the country suddenly doesn’t believe, the team must believe. We don’t want to hear anything, negative messages, but messages that lift the team”, added the ‘Tigre’.
(Also: Jorge Luis Pinto, straight ahead: should the National Team change venue?)
To take the party with serenity
Ospina, the savior of the National Team on many occasions over the last decade, also wants to shake off the mistake.
“We always live this, in football there are moments of happiness, of sadness, the important thing is that there is a dawn, that there is a chance and we are going to fight until the end, we gather ourselves in what we have been doing; in those six games (the last ones without a victory) nobody passed us over, Colombia tried to propose and get the results”, said the goalkeeper.
(In other news: Argentina will have sensitive casualties for the game against Colombia)
The accounts go step by step: for now, win in Argentina and reach 20 points. Then, wait to see what happens in the rest of the qualifying round to shuffle again and plan for March. But the first thing is Córdoba: there is no tomorrow. Colombia wants to believe that miracles exist.
Jose Orlando Ascencio
Sports Sub-Editor
@josasc
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