100% agree!! Thank you Dusty, for being the most sane post here, after everyone already bitchin' about Bolillo.
While the ref is responsible for the goals we received, he can't get blamed for our obvious tactical problems and our problems of creating chances/goals. We still have this cowardly attitude where we don't cross the ball we pass the player not the open space, etc We must loose our fear of crossing the ball, regular corner kicks, having a shot at goal, make long passes, run without the ball. We see these things as something negative since it means we loose possession. Ball possession does NOT win games, goals do. Notice what an impact Rodallega had on this game, that's because he's now deprogrammed from the EPL and has another mentality.
i didn't get to see the 2nd half - how did Rodallega play? the thing about the 2 penalties is that it gave SA the lead and allowed them to play a different style of game once they had the lead. in any case, let's just take a step back and realize this was our first game since october while SA has had more games since then and has probably trained together longer in recent days. it was good to see the team and these players ospina, zapata, armero, zuniga, g10, abel, guarin. jackson and ramos will be platooning up front with falcao, rodallega, teo and wason over the next few years. yepes i would rather see go based on his age - i don't see him playing at 38 in 4 years from now
I couldn't see much of the second half since the videostreams went down. I saw first half + last 10-15 mins without interruptions though. The guys I liked in our team were Roda, Ospina and Zapata. (I got pleasantly surprised by Ospina) But the bottom line is our tactics are just too ineffective. We need to learn how to play more simple and direct, and that's something Bolillo won't do. I so hope we will be able to see the nigeria game in spite of it being played without crowds.
People are being very harsh, at times we made them look like a pub team. Its not like they had crazy shots at our goal. I dont remember good enough chances going there way except the pens. We got some things to sort out. Especially for me, crossing. Zuniga was awful. Totally awful. If Yepes does go, well be left with Mendoza, Zapata, IRC, L Perea, Aquivaldo in that CB role. So its between those.
Download the game For those who couldn't watch the game, you can download the first and second half here: http://www.egoshare.com/download.php?id=99C5621842 http://www.egoshare.com/download.php?id=121825E040 The quality is great and both files are about 450-500Mb
great!! Thanks I'm downloading second half now the parts I missed. A bit depressing rewatching a game we lost but what the heck....I liked the lineup.
the concern i have with zuniga is that he plays more as a LM or RM for napoli these days and if he is expected to be our Dani Alves the transition from club team to national team will always be a problem. yepes needs to go b/c of his age - zapata and aquivaldo are probably my top 2 CB's and as a nacional supporter, i don't mind Mendoza being on that list too. IRC rarely plays for Inter these days and is as old if not older than Yepes. Luis Perea doesn't do it for me, but he will probably be the new fabian vargas for 2010-2014 where he will be callled up all the time and we'll cane the ***t out of him after every game... in any case - i think we need to use these next few friendlies to try out new CB's to partner up with Zapata and rely on Yepes or IRC as a last resort
Personally I wouldn't mind Mendoza as Zapatas partner even if I know everyone hates him on these boards I remember that game against honduras a few years ago that we lost when aquivaldo made a stupid misstake and looked fragile. Still I like aquivaldo more though than yepes. I know he's a defender but with Mendoza we'd add yet another player with a good distance shot and someone who can score. He'd be good on corners etc I also wouldnt mind if we started using zuniga as a RM and putting Ivan Velez as RB (who probably is much better at crossing the ball) [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBWQFhzu3dA"]YouTube- Sudafrica vs Colombia (2-1) Amistoso Internacional Sudafrica 2010 - Johannesburgo SC[/ame]
Game Analysis Game notes: 1-There isn't much difference between Lara's and Bolillo's NT. The team was very organized, specially in defense, like Lara's teams against Brazil and Argentina in the 2010 qualifiers. Bolillo bet the whole attack on Gio Moreno, Jackson Martinez and Adrian Ramos. The bet worked because Gio Moreno had a great game. At times during the 1st half, Jackson was so lonely up front that he came back to the midfield to get some play, just like Falcao and Wason Renteria used to do with Lara's team. 2-South Africa's team is laughable. They are FIFA ranked well below Colombia and it shows. The referee was obviously paid to make sure RSA won the game. I will be surprised if they manage to win even one game without referee help in the WC2010 (and i am not the only to say this.. just listen to Caracol's video commentary) 3-Most of Colombia's possession time was spent touching the ball sideways and backwards, even after we were down 2-1. Pathetic. Welcome to toque-toque 2010. 4-Individually, most players did an ok job. Yepes had a couple of misses and he was slow at times. The second invented penalty kick started when Yepes was surpassed. It makes NO SENSE to play him.. he is going to be too old in the next WC.. why even bother? He is going to have to be replaced anyway.. mind as well start now. Ibarbo is a joke, Bolillo called him just to show him off so Nacional can sell him. Aguilar didn't do so good either. At times he had a hard time passing the ball properly. There are plenty of local guys that are 1000 times better than Aguilar. Ramos created the play leading to the penalty kick, from a Gio10 pass. He was always fast and dangerous, but IMHO, he is no match to Falcao. Anchico was better than Ibarbo and Aguilar, at least when he joined the attack. 5-Welcome to Bolillo's ultradefensive NT: -Most attacking plays are done via long passes, pelotazos y centros (very much like Pinto's team) or single plays by Gio10. The team only started anemically attacking collectively after it was losing 2-1, because everyone was so busy defending. The defensive midfielders like Aguilar were scared to death to leave their positions and attack (yes, i know he is a defending midfielder, but Vargas plays the same position and he used to go on the attack all the time, with the NT and with Boca). Our only goal, the penalty kick was by a lone Gio10 and Adrian Ramos play. -Bolillo took too long to make changes after he was losing 2-1, just like Pinto and Rueda used to do.. by the time he exchanged Ramos with Rodallega it was too little, too late. Still, he never changed his ultradefensive strategy, and he lost the game. -Regardless of the paid referee, we weren't unable to beat one of the worse teams in the next WC, FIFA ranked 50 places below us, and we didn't play much better than they did. -Sincerely, i like Lara's NTs a lot better, and that is pretty sad. Bolillo's team is nothing offensively without gio10 & jackson. They are irreplaceable. Just like Pinto, Bolillo is a strategic COWARD. This is even worse than i imagined.
Re: Game Analysis Ok lets get rid of Bolillo from one game were he had 6-7 days to train players and has implemented every idea he has in that time. At least wait until after the Nigeria to give one of your little 'armageddon' breakdowns. We hated on Pinto, Lara and now we move over to Bolillo. Its sad. What do people want to hear that he is SH.IT. He is. Leave it at that. Lets move on coz hes all we got.
Re: Game Analysis Antibolillo I agreed with everything people just don't want to admit anything is wrong till its game 13 of WCQs in 2013 and we are about to be eliminated again... The toque toque thing was so so annoying all the back passing !!!! A quicker better team would destroy us. Imagine us playing like we did against Chile ???? Or ARgentina !!! It would be 20-0 As for its his 1st game !!! THIS IS THE EXACT SAME TEAM THAT PLAYD AGAINGST PARAGUAY !!!!!!!! You mean these guys have no chemistry? WIth the exact same system of a 4-3-1-2 !!!! ITs not like we switched to a 3-5-2 or a 3-4-3 I saw one completed cross in 90 mintues !!!
Re: Game Analysis Thanks for the info.. i didn't know this was (almost) the same Paraguay line-up I was too disgusted to watch our last WC qualifier game. I don't think Lara is as rigid as Bolillo or Pinto, and he lets his midfielders attack.. same with Armero and Zuñiga. Bolillo is just too afraid of losing, so expect pretty much the same results as we did with Pinto: Great Defense, sideways and back toque-toque from midfield down, attacks via long balls and crosses, few goals, a lot of tied games, and the occasional embarassment, like our Chile qualifier games that showed Bielsa is infinitely superior to Lara or Pinto.
Good things about the game, we actually found some players for the team. That is the case of Ospina, Zapata, John Valencia, Rodallega, Gio Moreno and Jackson. In some way Anchico too. (If he's used instead of Abel, not in Ibarbo's position.) Now, Bolillo has to put them all in the next game, he has to figure the way of doing it. I'd use Roda as a right winger. The bad things begin with Yepes. I don't like the way Yepes just kicks the ball "de punta y para arriba" really afraid defender, we are starting bad from there on. Armero terrible, too much speed and so little accuracy, Zuniga, don't know about this guy sometimes good and some really forgetable cross kicks. Same with Abel and Guarin don't know how to pass a ball. I think bolillo will play there Valencia and Restrepo in the future. We need to start the attack from this position. Ibarbo don't even desserves a comment, Bolillo's mistake there was other people that should have the opportunity way better than him. I expect that he won't get a call again for a while.
Has anyone ever thought that maybe we just aren't that good? Idk, I agree a foreign coach would be better, but I think we Colombians expect too much from our talent pool. After all, is there a Colombian better than Zuniga in his position? No. There isn't.
Granted a coach with more offensive and modern football could really help us progress. I agree Bolillo was a horrible choice for a coach. Dumb feds.
Our players ARE good. They succeed overseas.. Falcao, Marco Perez, Yepes, Rodallega, Jackson martinez, Ospina, Ramos, etc. Take Chile and compare their best players one by one to our players, and tell me, who's got better players overall? The only reason why we are not in the WC is because our coaches SUCK and we have a thief as head of our federation. We are a corrupt nation, and our soccer is not any different. Bielsa has proven that you don't need extraordinary players to have an extraordinary TEAM. The key word here is TEAM. We don't have a National team, we never did, we just have a collection of rotating individuals that changes from game to game, coached by second rate people.
you bring up a good point which is similar to a question i use to ask over and over again during the qualifiers. "what is your expectation of the NT" even if we did qualify - how would you seriously expect us to do in a world cup? my response to my own question was that if we sneaked into the WC with our "play to not lose mentality" - i would expect us to be 3 games and done in an embarrassing fashion - similar to copa america 2007. the other responses i got were quite amusing. gk - ospina is our poor man's casillas - who has a chance to be our GK for the next 10+ years - as long as he gets better at Nice - i think he'll be ok def - we have solid defenders with zapata, armero and zuniga as our core defenders but we need to develop better reserves - we need to develop defenders to be adequate reserves like Luisao who can shine when given a chance. forwards - we have above average forwards and a what could be a world class striker in falcao midfielders - gioMore is quickly becoming our top dog attacking mid-wise based on his performance yesterday and his WCQ games. he needs to continue to improve and be that guy who is not afraid to make mistakes. what will help GioMore the most is a defensive mid like Sanchez to be recalled. we keep using these box-box midfielders like guarin and aguiar to be the DM when they are not true DM's. call up Amaya, for christ sake, but we need a true DM who can make GioMore's life a lot easier. but the depth of midfielders is our achilles heel right now and as a result our defnders have to work harder and our strikers never get the ball... bottom line - i think for 2014 - we'll be competing for that 4th or 5th spot again unless we start sending getting some world class midfielders.
yeah - i was at that game in ft. lauderdale - that was in 2008. that was a horrible night b/c i got sick and missed work the next day on top of the defeat, but i believe wason scored our lone goal of that game. suazo did make aquivaldo seem like his b*** that night though... i liked aquivaldo - with him as captain and CB - the results during the first 9 WCQ's were not terrible
Para los que vieron el partido, que tal se vio Colombia? Alguna gran diferencia en el andamiaje del equipo que jugó las Eliminatorias y el actual?
Yo me vi el partido, pero la verdad no espero mucho en un partido con un poco de jugadores que acaban de terminar campeonatos, que muchos estan con el fisico desgastado y que llevan 1 semana trabajando.
Pero igual uno puede concluir si el equipo jugó bien, mal o regular. O si Gómez mandó al equipo al ataque o no. En fin, que opinan?
pues mi hermano, te cuento el medio campo lo note muy endeble, vi muy bien a zapata, ospina y rodallega; ramos y jackson mostraron chispazos. claro q aun es muy temprano para sacar una conclusion y menos con semejante atraco que vimos, mejor dicho sudafrica tenia que ganar ante su publico costara lo que costara, creo que debemos esperar a ver el partido contra nigeria para hacer un analisis mas profundo.
Re: Game Analysis I agree with practically everything you stated but right here i feel you're beginning to touch on something very important. NO ONE asks for the ball. Personally I'm not sold on Gio; he loses the ball ALOT but I can understand why people like him. He wants to make plays. He was the only player on the field who moved around and made himself open. Everybody else waits in their positions thinking "I'll do my job when someone gives it to me." It's because of that that most of our possession ends up being back passes and ultimately one of our defenders usually has to lob it up field. Now, I've never been a fan of Vargas but I must admit the guy makes his presence known and when he's on the field our team looks a little more dynamic. We need our players to present themselves. Better stated, we need a to play a more "total" futbol. Believe me guys, toque toque can work ex: Barca. I'm not sure if the problem lies in the players themselves or if this rigidity is a tactical result(probably). If not, someone needs to be added to the team who will move around and incorporate himself and, more importantly, everybody else; watch how Restrepo plays for Dim.