Nestor Lorenzo He said one day that he was not a man of many ideas, but that obsessive habit of wearing the same clothes every time the Colombian National Team plays, with a burgundy shirt and a black suit, which coincides with his streak of 21 games without losing since he has been in the position gives it away. Lorenzo does not change his appearance, and if he does well for the team, which debuted with victory in the America Cup against Paraguay, may well have its annual endowment assured.
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Sometimes it seems like it is the same shirt as always and someone will wonder if Lorenzo sleeps with it, if he uses it in his daily life or if he just takes it out of the closet, like armor, for when the Colombian National Team plays. It’s when he puts it on, with such consistency that each game he directs seems like a photo of the previous one and the previous one and the previous one. One day, in Colombia’s penultimate friendly against Bolivia before the Copa América in the United States, he altered his ritual, wearing striking black glasses. There was no anomaly. Colombia won again. Lorenzo’s shirt did his job.
Néstor Lorenzo and his cabal
Last year, Lorenzo was asked in an interview about his outfit, about the burgundy shirt and the black jacket, and Lorenzo commented: “They are the same (suit and shirt), but I have two or three. I like the colors, in Melgar (Peru) I got used to red and black and I think it suits me well, so we are going to continue there,” he told journalist Jaime Dinas. And yes, his tradition began when he directed that Peruvian team that just dresses in red and black.
Melgar was Lorenzo’s first experience as a head coach, after having been the second of José Pékerman. And he did so well that he was champion in 2022. So he didn’t stop dressing like that. That outfit has marked him since he arrived at the National Team as the main coach and since he has not lost yet, there is no reason to change.
However, Lorenzo confessed in the same interview: “I don’t have many assumptions, one or another, but I believe a lot in God and I ask him to enlighten me to make wise decisions.” And yes, he is also a religious man, a believer, so much so that before the debut in the Copa América there was another cabal that came to light, and that was when he posed with the entire team for a group photo. Lorenzo raised his left hand and on his tactical board he had an image of the Virgin of Luján, patron saint of Argentines. The image was not new, it has accompanied Lorenzo for years, even in Melgar when he was champion.
The cabals of football
Kabbalahs are those tricks of the mind through which those who believe in them assume specific, repetitive and obsessive behaviors in exact details, with the certainty that the future will depend on that repetition, believing that what is about to happen on the field will happen. according to the background.
Knights, very common in football, are obsessive subjects in the repetition of situations, environments, atmospheres, clothing, sentences, tics and a long etcetera, as long as, they believe, destiny does not go wrong. There are players who always enter the field with the same foot, there are coaches who say the same prayer or kiss the same card three times, neither more nor one less, as the Argentine Gustavo Costas did during his time as coach of Santa Fe. Costas, a gentleman by nature, did not allow garbage in the technical area, as if it were a sacred altar that could not be dirty because it would harm the development of the game.
Carlos Bilardo, the legendary Argentine coach, was a master of this science: the same song, occupying the same seat on the bus, repeating calls in an almost exact manner, defining which player came on to the field first and who came last… all of that was as important, or even more so, than his technical talk. One of his most famous superstitions at the Mexico 1986 World Cup was that Diego Maradona, Argentine captain, will enter the stadium first. Meanwhile, in all matches it was respected that the last to enter the playing field was Jorge Burruchaga, as reported by the newspaper La Nación. Once on the field, Bilardo always exchanged words with the same two people (reporters from El Grafico magazine) and sat at the end of the substitutes’ bench. Everything with precision. Lorenzo’s thing is more subtle, it’s how he looks, but that doesn’t change it at all.
Whether it’s divine or mystical help, things have not gone badly for Néstor Lorenzo. The national team is going strong, undefeated, and is now preparing to face Costa Rica on Friday in its second match in Group D. Until then, Lorenzo will be seen in a coach’s shirt, but on Thursday night it is certain that he will be getting ready his burgundy shirt, his black jacket, the clothing that gives him the confidence to keep winning.
PABLO ROMERO
SPORTS journalist
@PabloRomeroET
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