Will coach Gustavo Alfaro be Colombia’s ‘kryptonite’? Can his Costa Rica end Néstor Lorenzo’s undefeated team?
These are some of the questions that will be resolved this Friday after the match against the Sele led by Alfarothe coach among those who lead in the America Cup who perhaps knows the coffee players best after Lorenzo.
There is no doubt that the Colombian team has dominated the confrontations against Costa Rica. In the last sixty years they have only lost one game against the Ticos, for 2-3, in the 2016 Copa América Centenario, which was also played in the United States.
This Friday will be his fifth commitment America Cupa record that the coffee growers lead with three victories and one defeat.
Also read: Gustavo Alfaro challenged Colombia in the Copa América: “I hope they look at us with respect”
But the Costa Rican formula to beat Colombia Perhaps his starting eleven does not have it and he is not even on the playing field but on the bench, with Gustavo Alfaro, the Argentine coach who, as Ecuador’s coach, was the mastermind and took advantage in those duels with La Tri.
AlfaroAfter his successful time in his country’s clubs, he took a break and signed as a soccer commentator for a Colombian television channel where he worked for several years andThen he took the reins of a Tri that was a thorn in the side for Colombia.
Alfaro’s first match as coach of the Ecuadorian national team was against Colombia, which he beat 6-1 in Quito, on November 17, 2020, on the fourth day of the South American qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
After Colombiaunder the orders of Reinaldo Rueda, got even in the 2021 Copa América in Brazil when they beat Alfaro’s Ecuador 1-0, on the first date of group A, with a goal from Edwin Cardona in Cuiabá, in a match that played behind closed doors.
And in that same qualifying round for the World Cup in Qatar, on October 14, 202021, the Tri de Alfaro and Colombia faced each other in Barranquilla on the 12th, and the Ecuadorian team won a very disputed 0-0.
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On this occasion, although the heads-up of Colombia against Alfaro for the Copa América, the 22 protagonists on the playing field will be others. As a significant fact, none of the coffee players called up for this tournament has scored a goal against Costa Rica.
And once again, this Friday, football gives Alfaro the chance to cross the path of the Colombian team, a team he respects and admires but which he will seek to get in the way of his Ticos.
On the second day of Group D, Colombia can qualify for the quarterfinals and Alfaro and his team want to prevent it, just as they tied up Brazil with whom they tied 0-0 on the first date in a historic result that showed how hard it will be beat them.
“They left us for dead without playing,” Alfaro said in the press conference after that game with complete candor.
Néstor Lorenzo is now on the bench of the coffee team, undefeated in 24 games and favoritism as a candidate for the title, while on the other side Alfaro returns to the fray, with a Sele motivated and eager for much more in the Copa América 2024.
