Néstor Lorenzo has been undefeated in 20 games leading the Colombian team.
Photo: AFP – BEN STANSALL
Consistency is perhaps the word that best defines the process of coach Néstor Lorenzo leading the Colombian senior team. Exactly two years after his arrival, the Argentine strategist is about to face his first great challenge, the Copa América 2024, in which the tricolor will face Paraguay (June 24), Costa Rica (June 28) in the group phase. and Brazil (July 2).
“We want to make a good presentation,” he says. And what does that mean. “Well, win it,” she responds without hesitation, although she clarifies, so as not to sell smoke: “Colombia is good, but we go game by game. I don’t think we are favorites. Argentina and Brazil, even Uruguay, are very big teams, which are in the group of candidates that we want to join, but for that we have to continue growing and adjust a lot of things.”
He and his team are excited and convinced that there is something to fight. His football level and his results support it. The tricolor has managed to consolidate a clear style of play and a team that knows what they play and how they should do it. To this they add a winning mentality and unity, two key aspects to achieve the objectives.
Thanks to these virtues, the team has achieved important results. Before yesterday’s game against Bolivia they had gone 19 games undefeated with Lorenzo on the bench, with 14 wins and five draws, 35 goals for and only 14 against, for a performance of 82.4%.
“Colombia is a well-managed team, the work is evident and the results are there,” explains Antioquia coach Luis Fernando Suárez, who has managed, in addition to several clubs, the teams of Ecuador, Honduras and Costa Rica.
Suárez acknowledges that “I like what I see, a team that is united, with good energy and football manners, even though there is always room for improvement.” Arturo Reyes, Junior’s coach, has a similar concept, who led the absolute tricolor in four games. “You can see the harmony in this team, that it is a group of friends, who all pull in the same direction. In that sense, I think that Professor Lorenzo and his collaborators have done a very good job, which is reflected in what they do on the field and what happens off it.”
Both believe that the 58-year-old Argentine strategist has had “a very correct management”, in which he has known how to take advantage of the talent of the Colombian players who shine abroad. “He has potentiated what he found. He knew how to take the base that he had and go looking for and exploring alternatives,” explains Suárez.
Reyes, who managed a good part of the players who are on the squad that will play the Copa América in the United States, points out that “in all positions there are several possibilities, replacement options. There is variety, strong central defenders, others who can make the first pass; powerful full-backs who help the aerial game and others to come out playing, who know how to come out on the wing, but also internalize; midfielders with very good footing, who know how to distribute, and wingers and attackers with different characteristics, with imbalance and goals, who are doing very well in their clubs.”
Professor Suárez insists that a good part of Lorenzo’s success was achieving the right mix between experience and youth, with a generation that is on its way out and another that represents the present and the future: “I see the great (experienced) ones very committed, with good energy and the willingness to contribute from wherever they have to.”
In this new process, the Colombian team has shone in friendly matches, with resounding victories against rivals such as Germany and Spain, but also at the start of the Conmebol qualifier for the 2026 World Cup. In six games it is undefeated, with three draws and three victories, the most important of all none other than against Brazil, whom they beat for the first time in an official senior competition.
Most Colombian coaches agree that there are many highly knowledgeable coaches in the country, with the conditions to lead the team, but they also admit that Lorenzo’s work in the tricolor has been outstanding: “It has nothing to do with him being a foreigner. That is an issue of capacity and not nationality. For every coach the most important thing is the results, and in that sense there is nothing to reproach the teacher for,” says Suárez.
The fact of not speaking to the media as much and making few public appearances has kept the coaching staff shielded, with a style very similar to that of José Pékerman, of whom Lorenzo was assistant between 2012 and 2018, and with whom he went to the World Cups in Brazil and Russia.
“I am very happy with what is happening to Néstor Lorenzo, who was my number one collaborator there on the staff, when I was in Colombia. He has now guided a generation whose hand has grown a lot, with players in European teams where they have very good participation and a clear playing identity, Colombia knows well what it plays,” admits José Pékerman.
Precisely, after a couple of years of ups and downs and lurches, the national team has become a reliable, solid team, which perhaps does not play as beautifully as those that went to the World Cups, but which is practical and effective. It does not depend on one or two figures, but on the functioning of the collective.
“We have always tried to make the group the most important thing, to approach all games with the same seriousness and with the same intensity. This team dreams big, but also works hard to achieve its goals,” acknowledges Luis Amaranto Perea, Lorenzo’s technical assistant.
Colombia thus arrives, excited, but with its feet on the ground, to its first major tournament. Lifting the Cup is not easy, but it is not impossible either. Lorenzo and his boys have something to fight with.
