Candelo Mayer He was a magician with the ball. He did the tricks he wanted with the ball, he was able to filter passes as if the ball disappeared on the way. Thus he became an idol of Deportivo Cali, and of other teams such as millionaires, his rival on Saturday (8:15 pm TV Win +). Well now, as DT, he needs some of that magic that he wasted to get his Cali running, a team that for now suffers, sinks and drowns: a team that needs magic to resurface.
Mayer faces the toughest of awakenings for a coach. Open his eyes and realize that the team he loves so much, and that loves him so much, is in the last place in the standings, in the last!, as if it were not Deportivo Cali, as if was not the champion of last December, as if he still did not have the essence of Mayer.
Candelo is a newcomer to the position, he has only been in charge for a short time, he had already directed Cortuluá, which was his first experience as a DT, but the results have now received him as four doors slammed in the face: a defeat against Tolima, a draw at home against Medellin, a loss against Pereira and another against Envigado, which being local and so wide, 0-3, set off all the alarms. So Mayer, the Mayer coach, still doesn’t know what it’s like to sing victory on the sugar team.
He knows it, he recognizes it. “There are no excuses, here I am responsible,” said Mayer after the defeat against Envigado. The DT who made magic on the field, now suffers from the lack of it. And although this is just beginning, he does know how urgent the results are. “The mess is my fault, because if the team looks like that it’s because the message hasn’t been understood,” Mayer added.
That is why today’s match is so special, not only because he returns to El Campín, another epicenter of his genius as a player when he was dressed in blue, but because victory became an obsession, a necessity, he is not even content with the tie, because the table already hangs.
Mayer directs today with a divided heart, because in Millos he was champion and marked history as a spectacular 10. That is why he is loved and remembered by the fans, just as he happens on the green side, where however they are impatient due to the bad results and the bad game of the team.
present adverse
Mayer has already had to deal with the hardships of the position: facing the controversy, the media pressure, the fury of the fans, and that of making his idea understood, of transmitting his codes and of getting along with a rebellious crac like Theo Gutierrez.
When Candelo arrived, he said that he was giving Teo the keys to the team, and since Teo got himself ejected in the first game, Candelo got the whole bunch back. Teo was not summoned against Envigado, because he did not come to training when it was after a permit, as revealed by the new president Luis Fernando Menaand who called the episode a communication failure.
For this Saturday’s game, Mayer Candelo, who knows the secrets of the dressing rooms like nobody else, needs Teo back, the best Teo, the most committed, and that’s why he included him in the call. What is past is past, now Cali needs to look ahead, react, and for that Mayer is here: the one who was a magician inside the field needs his best tricks from outside.
PAUL ROMERO
Editor of THE TIME
@PabloRomeroET
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