Loss and Deception
by Jorge Vargas
When I was a boy, I would speak to my grandfather and to my father of many things: politics, school, girls, sports; and I also seem to recall always asking who would win a fight between a lion and a tiger. I'm not quite sure why but that was a question I would ask on a nearly daily basis.
I have learned quite a bit about most of those things, and though I learn much every day, I consider myself knowledgeable in those areas.
I learned pretty quickly, growing up in Peru, that you cannot really discuss sports without including passion. Without passion, there is no sport.
And here, I am not writing about the so-called 'passion' of going to a baseball game and eating hot dogs and drinking beers while cursing off a referee, only to go home that night and not really care about who won or lost the game the next morning. I am talking about putting your pride on the line for your team, and if your team wins, you will celebrate the next day and the day after that and so on. And if your team loses, you will wake up feeling deceived, weak, inconsequential, and impotent, and your pride will be forgotten.
That is passion for a sport and love for the jersey.
Few sports can bring about this sort of passion and, in truth, soccer is the greatest among them. Why?
Because soccer at the 'club' level - at the national league level - allows clubs to become national champions - of course - and then allows those national champions to compete in international tournaments against other national champions and, finally, a team is able to call itself the best in the continent, and that team will face the best team from the other continents and that winner can call itself the best team in the world. This is not like in baseball in the U.S. where a world series can be played between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets. That is utter rubbish, to be frank.
But soccer can become even more passionate. The clubs may have the greatest talent involved - they bring together the best players from all over the world and they pay a lot - but the national teams have the most at stake. After all, when the French national team plays, France's honor is being decided. And a Mexico-United States game is a match that goes much further than any 'sporting event.' It is precisely for that reason that Iran still remembers its 4-1 victory over the United States in World Cup 1998.
That is the beauty of soccer: A 'weak' country can defeat a 'strong' country. Two countries on the verge of war can meet on a different sort of battlefield and settle their differences. Two great allies can let out their frustrations against one another on the pitch - that's precisely what France and Italy did on June 17, 2008 when Italy defeated the French 2-0 and eliminated France from the Euro Cup 2008.
But having learned all of this, I am also going through a period of great deception.
On June 17, 2008, the French were big losers in soccer, but more so was a nation that means much more to me: Peru. Peru lost 6-0 to Uruguay in Montevideo, Uruguay; in the historic 'Centenario' Stadium that hosted the first World Cup in 1930 - which saw a brilliant Uruguayan victory over Argentina (4-2) in the first World Cup Final.
Peru's World Cup (2010) qualifying dreams began in late 2007 - and they ended in June 2008 - when Peru fought Paraguay to a 0-0 draw, only to go on to lose to Chile, to then draw 1-1 with Brazil (no small task), which led to an embarrassing 5-0 defeat in Quito to Ecuador (I do not quite believe it myself), which was followed by a relatively redeeming 1-1 draw against Colombia, culminating in a 6-0 defeat at the hands of mighty Uruguay.
It was Peru's worst defeat in World Cup Qualifying in well over a decade and Peru's worst defeat since it lost 7-0 to Brazil in the 1997 Copa America in Bolivia in the semi-finals.
This is the same Peru that, in the 1970s, was always considered to be one of the top three teams in the Western Hemisphere - along with perennial powerhouses Brazil and Argentina - and which managed to force Italy to a draw in World Cup 1982 in Spain (Italy would go on to defeat all of its other opponents in that tournament and became the champion. The same Peru that crowned herself the champion of South America in 1975 and that used to defeat Ecuador by margins of 5-0 quite frequently in the 1970s. A Peru no different from the one that thrashed Paraguay with a 4-1 victory in 2003. And which trampled Uruguay with a tremendous 3-1 victory - in Montevideo - in 2004.
What happened to Peru? That is the question that true foreign football lovers ask of me when I tell them that I'm from Peru: What happened to Peru?
We were a great team. Yet we have not been to a World Cup since 1982. We failed to make it in 1986 and 1990, and did an even worse job in 1994 though we almost made it in 1998, and we again failed strikingly in 2002 and embarrassed ourselves further in 2006 and it seems as if 2010 will be an even more humiliating qualifying tournament than all of the previous ones. Why?
The director of the Peruvian Footballing Federation (FPF after its Spanish acronym) Manuel Burga is likely one of the most responsible individuals, along with an abusive FIFA policy that does not allow Mr. Burga to be dismissed by anyone other than FIFA. So Peru's Congress simply can not get involved - though it has tried - because then FIFA will suspend all Peruvian teams, including the national squad, from all international competitions. The same was done to Greece recently, though it is likely that it would not do that to Brazil or Germany or England or Italy if those countries tried it.
Then, of course, there is the World Cup Qualifying Commission headed by Juvenal Silva - an arrogant, petulant man from Peru's hinterland who cannot even speak Spanish properly. Luckily, only a few hours before this article was written, he resigned from that post due to the embarrassing 6-0 defeat at the hands of Uruguay.
Then, of course, there are the imbeciles who repeated the refrain (-) when Peru was looking for a new coach last year,(-) that our coach must be Peruvian because only Peruvians know our soccer. When did Peru become a land of nationalists? I know I've lived outside of Peru for some time, but I do not remember seeing such stupidity in my days spent there.
What 'national' coaches do we have? Mr. Uribe? Mr. Oblitas? Those men all had their chance and they all failed. Meanwhile, we had 'Bolillo' Gomez, the Colombian who coached Ecuador to its first World Cup qualification ever in 2002, asking for an application to coach for Peru - to say nothing of the countless great Argentine coaches who wanted the job, sensing that there is great potential in our national squad.
But those imbeciles chose José 'Chemo' del Solar. He coached a second division team in Spain - winning nothing - and coached a Peruvian club - again, winning nothing - and he played for the national squad in the 1990s - winning absolutely nothing as a player. Why did they choose 'Chemo'?
Because Brazil, only a few months prior, had just made a former Brazilian player - Dunga - the coach of the Brazilian national squad. So the copycats wanted to be like Brazil. Big difference between Dunga and Chemo: Dunga was a great player and he played on a team that won the World Cup; Chemo never even went.
Now, this is not Chemo's fault, really. He had potential as a coach, but the irresponsible media that touted a national coach and the imbeciles who made the decision to hire Chemo burned him out. He's as much a victim as the fans - though, don't get me wrong, he should resign at once.
And the rest of the blame goes to the media: For insisting on a national coach; for treating a Peruvian draw against Paraguay as if it were a great victory (Paraguay used to be nothing to us); for insisting that the FPF suspend four of Peru's best players on the charge that they went out drinking following the aforementioned Peruvian draw against Brazil in Lima, even though neither the media nor the FPF had any proof. The FPF, lacking backbone and wanting to copy Chile after the Chileans suspended their players for getting drunk and hiring women during Copa America 2007, suspended Claudio Pizarro (Chelsea, England), Jefferson Farfan (Schalke 04, Germany), Santiago Acasiete (Almeria, Spain), and Andres Mendoza who plays for an Ukrainian team. These four players are, without question, among our very best players. Our only players left on the team who are of world-class level are Paolo Guerrero, Juan Vargas, and Nolberto Solano (who will probably retire from the team soon).
And even if they had gone out and partied: So, what? They're a bunch of twenty-somethings. Their bodies can handle it. Our footballers would get drunk after games in the 1970s and 1980s. Who criticized them then? No one! Why not? Because they were winning. But now that they're losing, we criticize?
That is hypocrisy. Furthermore, it is a doubly serious hypocrisy: When did Peru become a Puritan nation? When did we become so innocent about alcohol and sex? Perhaps in my time spent in a Protestant, conservative country, Peru became just as conservative. But I doubt that. This is about hypocrisy.
The FPF suspended them for a period of 18 months, without proof of any violation being committed and after all of the players asked for mercy and leniency. Following yesterday's loss to Uruguay, the FPF declared that it would make its definitive ruling on the suspension shortly. Why?
Because they have realized that if Peru with those players was not a great team, then Peru without them is garbage. But will Pizarro, Farfan, Acasiete, and Mendoza agree to play if the FPF changes its ruling?
I hope not. Peru almost destroyed their careers and it added so much stress to Pizarro that he was unable to perform well for the Chelsea club and he will likely be transferred to another squad soon. If those men had any dignity, they would tell the FPF and Mr. Burga to go directly to hell.
Those are the culprits: The FPF and Mr. Burga; the World Cup Qualifying Comission and Mr. Silva; the press, and the fans who foolishly listen to that childish and hypocritical media.
There are ways to fix our football, but the path will be a long one. It must begin with a foreign coach: Someone not involved in the mafia that is the FPF. Furthermore, we must not simply bring in new players for the sake of change: They have to be good! And if we lack the players at present, let's go scouting.
As for the actual game play: Let's try the 4-1-2-1-2. Let's just try it. It can be both offensive and defensive. We have the players to fit that formation, especially with Vargas on the left and Solano on the right, and if we can get Farfan and Pizarro to come back, then we're all set. Peruvians have never played good defense; our strength was always in the attack. So let's attack. Stop with the 4-5-1 and the with the retracted 4-4-2 and let's please never play with five defenders. That's just embarrassing.
And let's keep playing the wings! That's a smart move, Chemo. But let's also play the center, because if Solano or Vargas run up the side but there's no one in the center, all you have a really tired Solano and a really tired Vargas. And, while we're at it, let's not try to set up an offside trap in defense - that only works if your team is a team and all we have right now is a bunch of players thrown together.
We have the players to go one-on-one with Brazil and win. What we seem to lack is the discipline, the organization, the seriousness of purpose, and the intelligence to make those players work together.
And could FIFA please fire Mr. Burga?
Thanks!
Until those changes take place, I guess I'll go learn about lions and tigers because soccer is making me keep my head down far too often.
