Colombia Reports is going to do something new. From now on we will
provide you with previews for each and every match of the Colombian
national team. Today we start with the friendly between Colombia and
Nigeria planned for tonight.
Tonight’s match is scheduled to start at 9pm local time and is not being played in the national team’s usual venues, Bogotá or Barranquilla, but takes place at the newly built Deportivo Cali stadium. It is the first time in nine years that a national team game is played in Cali. Back in 1999, Colombia drew 1-1 with Denmark.
The match will be a good test for manager Eduardo Lara, who watched his predecessor lose one game after the other over the last year. While Colombia has a decent selection to work with, this can’t be said about Nigeria. One after the other dropped from their team due to injury and the Africans are expected to field a bit of a b-team for this clash.
But the Colombian team shouldn’t be fooled by this fact as many of the players that should make an appearance in Cali are the ones that appeared in the Olympic football final three months ago.
The Colombians haven’t won a single match this year, despite having played no less than ten games. Three were drawn and the remaining seven were lost. Tomorrow it’s exactly a year ago that Colombia beat Argentina 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier. Things sure looked better at the time.
Nigeria are on a winning streak, having beaten their last six opponents. It has to be said though that these rivals include countries as Equatorial Guinea and Sierra Leone.
The line-ups:
Colombia: Agustín Julio; Camilo Zúñiga, Amaranto Perea, Mario Yepes, Pablo Armero; Freddy Guarín, Gerardo Bedoya, Christian Marrugo, Giovanny Hernández; Carlos Darwin Quintero, Marcos Pérez.
Nigeria: Vicent Enyeama; Joseph Tobo, Obinna Nwaneri, Ayodele Adeleye, Solomon Okoronkwo; Cristian Obodo, Kalu Uche, Yakubu Ayegbeni, Oluwafemi Ajilore; Victor Obina, Ikechukwu Uche.