Since 2018, Colombian soccer entered a shadow cone from which it has been difficult to get out. No team from the country has passed the group stage of the Copa Libertadores since then, although this year Tolima and Cali seem to have enough to fight for a place in the second round. And in the South American, since Junior was a finalist that year and lost the title with Atlético Paranaense, they have not advanced beyond the quarterfinals either.
Now that many factors are measured in football that were not previously taken into account, the Colombian League is left in a bad light in many aspects. And all those deadly sins that are committed inside end up paying in international shares.
For some time now, some coaches had sounded the alarm about what is being played in the country and the consequences that it brings as soon as the passport is stamped.
“These intensities cost us, it costs us when we go out to compete. In these scenarios it is difficult for us, our League is not so strong to think that we are going out internationally and with our rhythm it will catch up with us. I believe that it does not go through a specific team, but that it happens more because of what happens in our league ”, said Amaranto Perea, then coach of Junior de Barranquilla, in 2020. And many ended up pointing it out.
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“Here we have improved in some things: the dressing rooms, the benches where the ball is directed, the ball has changed, the boots are the same as those used in Europe. The pitches have improved and make the game faster, more dynamic, but the issue of slowness in our game, of the lack of intensity, has to do with several things”, explained Juan José Peláez, League champion coach and Copa Libertadores runner-up with Nacional, and also former coach of Santa Fe, Junior and Medellín.
In the League you lose a lot of time
A study by the CIES Football Observatory, which measured for a year the time lost due to fouls and the seconds it takes to resume play in 38 world leagues, left the Colombian League in a very bad position: it was second in one and first in the other (see graph).
“Here there is no one who has not done it, we all in some way encourage the loss of time. What is discounted in the end? The problem is not that the time that is deducted is added, but that the pace of the game is cut and that threatens the team that wants to play, that picks up the rhythm, ” Pelaez acknowledged.
“Here there is no one who has not done it, we all in some way encourage the loss of time”.
The second sin is directly related to the first, and is the effective playing time in local championship games. On average, just over 49 minutes are played per game, a low figure compared to, for example, that of the Bundesliga, where the effective time exceeds 63 minutes.
In addition to the fouls and simulations, some also assign responsibility to the referees for this difficulty in getting to the rhythm of the game. “Our referees usually know the laws, but they don’t know the game,” said Arturo Boyacá, technical director of Patriotas, one of the best qualified teams in this aspect so far in the current championship.
Peláez also points out the responsibility of the referees in what happens: “If the referees don’t bother to know, to make statistics of who are the most theatrical and simulators, that’s going to be difficult. Just as they refresh their decisions regarding fouls and regulation issues, they have to know when a player fakes, which are the ones that fake the most, and that simulation has to be punished by yellow”, he pointed out.
The number of cards in the League, on the rise
The Colombian League is, so far this season, the second in which more yellow cards are shown. Up to date 17, there were 927 warnings, for an average of 5.34, only surpassed by Uruguay, which has an average of 6.13.
And in the first 17 dates, 58 red cards have been shown, one more than in the entire 2021-II League (with 56 fewer games) and nine more than in the 2021-I edition, when 185 games were played. Until Friday, there were 170. The average of expulsions, until now, is the highest since the 2015-I League, when 98 red cards were shown, 0.45 per game. Today it is at 0.34.
A championship with goal anemia
Until the end of date 17, and without counting the games this weekend, the Colombian League had the worst goal average of all tournaments in South America: 2.15 goals per game.
This is the worst data since the 2018-I League, when the worst goal average in the entire history of Colombian football was recorded, 2.08 per game. However, in the last 10 years there have been eight championships in which the average has been below 2.2. The problem is not new.
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One of those who has been very critical in this regard is the former coach of América, Nacional, Once Caldas and Millonarios, who in December of last year made a long reflection on the matter.
“It’s time to reflect on the present of our football and what we want our football to be in five or ten years”.
“One thing is to play whatever comes up; another thing is to play a ball, as they would say in Brazil, and another thing is to go out to win by proposing, and a very different scenario is to go out to win with the obligation to win by proposing. It is the moment to reflect on what the present of our football is and what we want our football to be in five or ten years”, Osorio said then.
“I think it’s time to ask Colombian football to consider other game ideas. Because it doesn’t depend on one, it depends on where the rival wants, even with limited players, to give one the space,” he added.
“The culture of the result is gaining more and more strength, which allows the ‘you have to win as it is’ above the commitment, to improve the game”, Boyaca said. “The tactical culture, in general, is focused on our team not receiving a goal,” he assured.
The Patriotas coach also explains the lack of goal in aspects such as the “deficiency in the training processes of our players.” A subject in which Peláez also agrees.
“I don’t know if the training methodologies are the most appropriate for football to become more dynamic; for that, the coaches have to have the idea of a different football today, of a more dynamic, more vertical football”, he explained.
The number of games in the League also affects
Another factor that affects the development of Colombian soccer is the number of matches played in the country. Meanwhile, until Friday, there were 170 league games, in none of the championships of the rest of the continent, except Brazil, where the state games are played before the Brasileirão, and the strange and very long format of the Argentine League Cup, had played more than 100 games. The one with the most was Peru, with 98 games.
Only counting the league games, in Colombia they are scheduled for 2022, 452 games in the two annual tournaments. The 20-team leagues in Europe play 380, and others, like the Bundesliga, which only have 18 teams in the first division, have a calendar with 340.
Peláez considers that the system with two annual tournaments, which has been held since 2002, is detrimental to the development of the teams’ game. “The tournaments of four and a half months do not give you competitiveness, they are sent to collect. That format doesn’t give you the ideal competition to go out internationally,” he noted.
Tolima, Cali, Junior and Medellín, the Colombian survivors in Conmebol tournaments, struggle to move on. But there are still many sins to be corrected in the local tournament.
Jose Orlando Ascencio
Sports Sub-Editor
@josasc
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