Yesterday, Luis Fernando Suárez traveled halfway around the world back to the land that welcomed him, Costa Rica, where he is now celebrating his third qualification for a soccer World Cup. He is a man who inspires tranquility, and with that calm he manages to convince those he directs of the idea of him.
It was not easy. When the final part of the Concacaf qualifier was about to begin, Suárez had just been eliminated from the Gold Cup against Panama. And they felt that blow, because, in the first seven dates, they could barely get six points.
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Suárez managed to convince the group that the path could be straightened out. And there is a paragraph that explains how football lives. He wrote it himself, in the prologue of the book The best coaches of Colombian soccer, published by the author of these lines in 2019.
“A man who seduces is the one who falls in love with what he does, with his ideas, with his behavior and even more with his convictions, more than teaching a good game strategy, the footballer needs to be convinced that this strategy is the right one. better, that it is the winning strategy and that it is worth devoting all the effort to executing it to achieve the proposed results. That conviction will make him fall in love with his job, the tasks he performs, his colleagues and his environment. From there is born the passion to achieve the most ambitious goals, ”Suárez wrote then.
Suárez came to professional football by rebound
In Suárez’s plans it was not to reach professional football. “I was a good student, one of the diligent students always in class. I was studying at the Liceo Antioqueño and there they held an interclass tournament. The coach from the University of Antioquia saw some players from there and took us,” he recalled.
Suárez was left dreaming what was the reason why he was chosen for that team. “I already played central defense. When I gained confidence with the coach, I asked him why he had chosen me and he told me that he didn’t know, that maybe it was big, but that he wasn’t going to leave without taking a player from there”, he recalled.
Luis Fernando Suárez (centre), together with Javier Álvarez, in a National Team training session, in 1999.
Suárez showed good conditions as a central defender, despite not being that tall by the standards of the position: he is 1.76 meters tall. And for this reason, in 1976, he was already part of the Antioquia team, in which he was coached by Justo Lopera and Humberto ‘Tucho’ Ortiz. And thenin 1979, the Yugoslav Blagoje Vidinic took him to the South American Youth in Uruguay, with a team that began with illusions, beating Brazil 2-0, but ended up eliminated in the first round.
At that time, Atlético Nacional paid 40,000 pesos to the University of Antioquia for their sports rights. And of course he ended up in the professional team, when several circumstances coincided so that he not only made his debut, in June 1981, but also so that he had a lot of continuity in the first team.
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“The tie for Spain 82 was coming. Carlos Bilardo took about four or five players from Nacional to the National Team: Hernán Darío Herrera, Pedro Sarmiento, Jorge Porras. And furthermore, Peru took César Cueto and Guillermo La Rosa. Then (Osvaldo Juan) Zubeldía put me to play, many young people had the opportunity to play for a while, “he recalled.
Although almost all the youths were returned to the lower divisions once the starters returned, Suárez had a few more minutes in the campaign that led Nacional to win the 1981 championship. And then he earned the position, alternating as central or midfielder , although he also had a spell with Deportivo Pereira in 1986.
He learned to be a technician from a very young age
He was still a player, but Suárez was restless. After a match between América and Nacional at the Pascual Guerrero, Suárez went to the local dressing room to look for the América coach, doctor Gabriel Ochoa Uribe.
Gerardo González Aquino, who had already retired and had joined Ochoa’s coaching staff, told him that the doctor could not see him. Suárez, with some sorrow, returned to his locker room. The surprise came hours later: Ochoa went to look for him at the hotel where Nacional was staying. And they ended up chatting for hours about football, accompanied by Francisco Maturana and Diego Barragán, who directed Nacional.
Commissioned by José Orlando Ascencio @josasc I wrote the prologue of his book “The best coaches of Colombian soccer”
In that prologue I tell this anecdote with Dr. Gabriel Ochoa Uribe where he shows his greatness.
Thank you doctor for showing us the way. #GabrielOchoaUribe 👇 pic.twitter.com/aJs021xL5b– Luis Fernando Suarez (@LFSuarezDT) August 9, 2020
Maturana was struck by Suárez’s interest and, still as a player and at 28 years old, he sent him back to a Colombian National Team, but now, as a technical assistant.
“That was in 1988. They appointed Juan José Peláez to lead the U-20 team that was going to a South American tournament in Argentina. Nobody wanted to be the assistant of that team. Pacho, who was like everyone’s boss, offered me to go as his assistant. I really wanted to be a physical trainer, I was going to study physical education. I told him that I didn’t know what I had to do, and he convinced me, he told me that I had to do more or less the same tactical work that I did with him at Nacional, that I take charge of the defense. Diego made me a special work plan so as not to lose my form as a player”, he said.
That first experience as a member of a coaching staff was quite good. That team, which had players like Óscar Córdoba, Jorge Bermúdez, Diego Osorio, Geovannis Cassiani and Iván René Valenciano, qualified for the World Cup in Saudi Arabia.
She even came with the option of being champion on the last date, but a controversial arbitration by Costa Rican Berny Ulloa harmed the team, which lost 2-1 against the local team, Argentina, and had to resign with second place. In the World Cup, already in 1989, they reached the second round and were eliminated by Portugal, who was champion that year at the hands of Carlos Queiroz, who, three decades later, led the Colombian National Team.
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Upon returning from Arabia, Suárez rejoined Nacional and was part of the 1989 Copa Libertadores champion team. He was not a starter, but Maturana knew when to put him on.
“Pacho is very intelligent, he got me into the toughest games: I entered the second half against Racing, in a very rare change he made: we were losing 2-0 and with that they equalized the series. He took out Alexis García and put me in. In the end we qualified with a goal from Felipe Pérez. I also played against Millonarios and my last game was against Danubio, in Montevideo. In the final I was on the bench, ”he recalled.
Two weeks after winning the Libertadores, and without knowing it, Suárez played his last professional game, against Junior de Barranquilla. He was just 29 years old. Maturana had other plans for him, although Suárez laughs at the decision: “Pacho told me that I was such a good person that he didn’t know how to kick me out, so he made me his assistant.”
Pacho directed, at the same time, National and the Colombian National Team, and had to prepare both the Copa América in Brazil and the qualifying round for Italy 1990. The first tournament was going to be the test bench for the biggest challenge, returning to the World Cup. after 28 years. So while Maturana was with the National Team, Nacional’s coach was Suárez, with former goalkeeper Roberto Vasco as field assistant.
And with the challenges met, Maturana returned to Nacional and played the Intercontinental Cup against Milan, in which Suárez could have had one last chance to play: they took him as a footballer, because they couldn’t take three technical assistants and he almost finished headline: Andrés Escobar had a sprained ankle. In the end, he was a substitute in Tokyo.
The first big tournament, with Ecuador
Suárez began to gain space to become a coach. He was Hernán Darío Gómez’s assistant at Nacional when Maturana was hired by Real Valladolid. He then had his first experience as a coach: he managed Pereira in 1994. And when Maturana took over the reins of Ecuador, he took him on as an assistant.
The Copa América in Bolivia 1997, crossed in the middle of the tie, served for the majority of teams to send alternate lists. Ecuador went further and not only sent an emerging team, but Maturana put Suárez in charge of the team. He did very well: he reached the second round.
Then he returned to a National Team, which won the Esperanzas de Toulon tournament in 1999, and that same year he took on Nacional, replacing the Argentine Reinaldo Merlo. He made him champion, in a final against America, directed by another coach who was just beginning his career: Jaime de la Pava.
That 1999 title put him in the folder to direct the senior team: in January 2000, Javier Álvarez went to direct the Pre-Olympic and a 9-0 win against Brazil, when he could lose up to seven to qualify, left him without Market Stall. In the end, the Federation decided on Luis Augusto ‘Chiqui’ García.
He went through Cali, Tolima and Aucas until in 2004, when Bolillo left the Ecuadorian team, they called him to replace him. There he achieved his first qualification for the World Cup and, for the first time, put the team in the round of 16.
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“Going to the World Cup is the best thing that has happened to me. I never thought of getting there. In everything I have done I always wanted to be applied and that is why I was able to achieve things. It was something incredible, I don’t know if I deserved it, there are people with more capacity than me”, revealed Suárez.
Then, after directing Pereira, Nacional and Juan Aurich, from Peru, they called him from Honduras, to follow the Colombian line that Reinaldo Rueda had started and that had taken them to South Africa 2010. This is how he achieved his second World Cup classification, that of Brazil 2014.
Luis Fernando Suárez, directing Honduras in Brazil 2014.
Suárez assures that the middle of Concacaf is difficult, thinking about the tie and comparing it with the South American one.
“It has progressed a lot: there is still that distance between some countries and others, but Canada, which was very little eight, ten years ago, has done a great job in minor divisions. The United States, the same: the MLS is not a championship where players finish their campaign, but people who have a lot to give. The infrastructure of the stadiums and the teams are much better. In addition, the islands are competitive, not only physical strength. For Mexico, the classification before was very easy, now it is not, ”he told EL TIEMPO in March of this year.
Now, with many more hours of flight, counting the 15 from Doha to Miami and the 3 from Miami to San José, Suárez hopes to enjoy the World Cup much more. The first, at least, took it with excessive calm.
“Getting to that World Cup, feeling it and not enjoying it, is contradictory. Every time Ecuador scored a goal, I saw it as a work situation. Today I think I should have at least laughed, hugged someone. But inside I enjoyed it”, said. Now you can externalize it more. Until then, he is still learning.
Jose Orlando Ascencio
Sports Sub-Editor
@josasc
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