The Colombian women’s soccer team faces tonight the game they have to win, the one who must win to meet her real minimum goal in the Copa América of which she is a local: to be a finalist, to be a runner-up. Today, in Bucaramanga, Argentina, a difficult, tough, practical and courageous team is the obstacle that must be overcome. That Colombia will win their group was expected. That he did it undefeated was budgeted. That he beat Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile was a fixed bet.
Argentina is more of a heads-up rival, but Colombia is still the favorite for today’s game. The matter is so clear that the confrontation for the prizes was resolved (words more, words less) giving them the money that had been proposed for being champions for being runners-up. The issue is that Brazil is the big boss and with an advantage in the area, and although it is football and all the games have to be played to win them, because the championship for the rest really is to be second. Even qualifying for the World Cup and the Pan American Games, both next year, as third place in the Copa América, are taken for granted for Colombia before the tournament. A detail: champion and second go, in addition, to the Olympic Games in Paris 2024. Therefore, the obligation of victory for Colombia as favorite and local tonight is undeniable. What has been done so far was as expected, as is defeating Argentina, which looks like its strongest rival so far.
(Don’t stop reading: Miguel Borja, unleashed: see his tremendous first goal with River Plate).
Why is it not going to be possible here?
The Colombian Association of Professional Soccer Players (Acolfutpro) suffered a severe setback from the Ministry of Labor: according to the entity, neither the Soccer Federation nor Dimayor are obliged even to hear a collective petition on their part, since it is not a union ( a thin interpretation) nor are they the direct employers.
In Colombia, just mentioning the words ‘collective bargaining’, ‘list of demands’ or ‘union’ is already being illegal and subversive. As if the most powerful unions in the world were not in the most powerful economies on the planet.
I don’t understand how, if collective bargaining exists in the main, strongest and richest leagues in world football (it’s the law of things!), that can’t be done here.
The resolution of the ministry leaves me with a tremendous concern: following your considerations, is it necessary then to form 36 unions, one per team, so that, for example, a club agrees on a month of vacations; another, 20 days, when Dimayor schedules one league after another two weeks apart? A decision that, at first glance, looks retrograde. I repeat: If it happens naturally and normally in the most powerful and richest leagues, why isn’t it going to be possible here?
(Also: Piqué: unexpected reaction to hearing the boos and shouts of ‘Shakira!’).
Bacca, ‘paradito’, dimensions our League
Carlos Bacca played with Junior for half an hour on his return to Colombian football and it was the crack of victory over Santa Fe. Assist, shot, two passes that should have ended in a goal… And playing from a spot! That Bacca, substitute for Granada who relegated in Spain (he did not score a goal in 17 appearances), come and in just 30 minutes make a tremendous difference in quality because, by show of hands, he dimensions our League.
And, after seeing it, I think: why not make him a point guard or ‘9 and a half’ or midfielder, which is almost the same thing? Theo already did. Paradito, he put a Junior to play who won, very short, just 2-0.
GABRIEL MELUK
SPORTS EDITOR EL TIEMPO@MelukLeCuenta
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