Match date: 22 March 2013

Colombia have been in great form in their qualifying matches for the World Cup as their promising talents have developed, with the likes of Falcao, Fredy Guarin, Jackson Matrinez, and James Rodriguez all having successful seasons with their teams in Europe. Manager Jose Pekerman has helped Colombia secure very positive results since taking over the national team, defeating Mexico 2-0 and Uruguay 4-0 and has taken his chances to tinker with his line up and the team’s style of play since taking over.

In their last qualifying match, Bolivia beat Uruguay 4-1 and were hoping to build upon this despite being second from the bottom of the group. Being away from home, they put out a more defensive looking line up than the side that beat Uruguay.

Colombia Attacks From the Right

Colombia were on the front foot of the match as soon as it started, having two goals disallowed for offsides in the first ten minutes, one being incorrectly called.

Throughout the match, Colombia found plenty of freedom in the wide areas, notably through Cuadrado, Fiorentina’s right wing-back. His ability to get forward was the result of Bolivia’s setup, which lacked a real left winger, leaving Bejarano to deal with both Cuadrado and Gutierrez.

When Colombia did come down the right, it meant one of two things, the first was that with Cuadrado’s ability to beat Bejarano with a bit of skill, Gutierrez, Bolivia’s centreback, would have to slide over to cover. The other situation that occurred was when Cuadrado would run from deep after Bejarano had already picked up Colombia’s Guiterrez, exploiting the space behind the Bolivian back, which left one of the Bolivian centrebacks to cover and one against Falcao. Falcao would usually make runs to the near post which allowed Torres to make late runs into the box unmarked, which is just what happened for Colombia’s first goal.

Cuadrado made a late run behind Bejarano, who was picking up Colombia’s Gutierrez, and Falcao dragged Bolivia’s Gutierrez to the left side of Bolivia’s area. Falcao received the ball and played Cuadrado in behind, who pulled the ball back for a free Torres.

Late in the second half, Cuadrado had to be replaced due to injury, but Colombia continued to be effectively in the wide areas, though this time on the left. Zuniga switched over to the right side with Armero coming slotting into left back and pushing high up the pitch and getting himself a goal.

As you can see above, James Rodriguez started the game on the left and found himself drifting inside a lot to get involved in the play. During the second half though, he was given more of a free role and was certainly more effective because of the change. It allowed him to combine very well with both Falcao and Torres and left the Bolivian defenders leaving large gaps as he drifted around and sometimes switched with Gutierrez. Four of Colombia’s goals came after the switch happened, though he did come off for Guarin in the 83rd minute, Colombia certainly showed a good bit of understanding and fluidity in the second half.

Bolivia’s Narrow Midfield

One of the reasons Cuadrado was able to get so much space and freedom as he ran down the right side of Colombia’s attack was because of Bolivia’s narrow midfield. Mojica, Garica, Veizaga, and Chumacero are all central midfielders so, even if they were set out to play a bit wider, they were always going to have the habit of coming inside. With four midfielders so narrow, Bolivia should have been able to control the game much more than they did, but the likes of James Rodriguez, who came inside very often, and Torres were able to easily combine in Bolivia’s half.

With essentially four central midfielders behind them, Martins and Saucedo should have had the ability to put more pressure on Valdes, Yepes, and Valencia (despite Bolivia’s back four being relatively deep), but all three were able to possess the ball without any pressure. Valencia, especially, was able to sit on the ball and usually pick out either Torres or Gutierrez checking towards him, drawing a defender out.

It also caused problems when Bolivia were in possession of the ball. Of the four, Mojica was the only one who really got forward with any threat, but it seemed each time that Bolivia got the ball, they looked to play the ball from deep into the head of Martins in Colombia’s penalty area with Saucedo trying to get on the knockdowns, but Martins rarely won the aerial dual. This was really their only option as they had no width from their midfielders and Bejarano and Jimenez both failed to offer any consistent outlet in the wide areas.

Conclusion

Colombia really dominated the whole game and could have gotten much more than the 5 goals. Tactically, it wasn’t the most interesting and I really only did the match after being asked to and it was almost kind of an upsetting match to watch, especially if you’re a Bolivia supporter. Xabier Azkargorta didn’t really try to fix his tactics to fix the problems from the first half. Bolivia still didn’t press at all, giving Valencia and Aguilar plenty of time to distribute forward and despite bringing on Cardoza for Saucedo at half time to play more on the left side of midfield, Caudrado still got forward with plenty of freedom.

Stray Observation

– Colombia are now second in their group and, according to FIFA, are the sixth best side in the world, above the likes of Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and Croatia.