Leonel Álvarez is no longer the technical director of Deportivo Pereira. In a decision that took his fans by surprise, The ‘Matecaña’ club announced the premature termination of the contract they had signed with the Antioquia strategist until December 2025.
“We deeply thank Leonel Álvarez and his coaching staff for their dedication and dedication during this season with us,” the statement completes.
After the elimination in the Betplay League home runs, Leonel had given no indication of a possible departure and it was even reported from Pereira that he was already working on building the squad for the second semester.
But something changed when they started talking about possible departures and arrivals. According to the version of journalist Iván Mejía, the Antioquian disliked some decisions made by the board of directors and he preferred to step aside before starting the preseason.
“As they told me: they owe money to the squad and they played finals under protest“, indicated Mejía through his account. x (ancient Twitter).
Despite the absences due to injury that he suffered throughout the semester and the decline in the level of several key players, Leonel kept Pereira alive until the last date of the home runs, when they lost against Atlético Bucaramanga in the capital of Santander and gave up the lead. of group A for the ‘invisible point’.
His process, however, had left good feelings among the fans, who expected a process of several years like the one they had planned before Alejandro Restrepo accepted the offer from Alianza Lima in Peru.
Unfortunately, the affinity between the coaching staff and the board was lost in a matter of days. “They are going to remove and sell three players. Leonel protested, they didn’t like him and with character the DT left that store behind.“added the Cali journalist.
This was Leonel Álvarez’s short stay in Pereira
Leonel leaves Deportivo Pereira with a balance of 31 games coached between the Betplay League and the first phases of the Colombia Cup. His process recorded 14 wins, 8 draws and 9 losses for a performance of 53.7%, not bad considering that he had to start the project from scratch as Restrepo’s replacement.
“What I do see is that there are some fat referees. They have to whistle a foul every two minutes to be able to rest, advice. Evaluate them in that part because they delay the game for a long time,” he said after a controversial match with Millonarios at home.
In the home runs he beat Junior after winning a victory in the Metropolitano. “No one wins before, and they already had the points, here they already had the points, because of course the emotional state was very high and they thought that, suddenly, the game was going to be easier. What happens is that Pereira planned himself well, he generated what he had to generate, we are ahead in the result,” he stated.
Right now it is not known where he will continue his career, since there are few Colombian soccer teams that are looking for a coach.
