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Farewell, Los Cafeteros

Image result for james rodriguez crying


It's been a little over two days since Colombia's devastating loss against England, and I feel like I still haven't recovered fully from it. As a fan, watching your team try so hard and fall short in such a brutal manner is a HUGE gut punch. After a grueling 120 minutes, watching the win slowly slip away during penalties was not easy to witness.

Yesterday, Colombia received a warm welcome back home in Bogota by the country who supported them and believed in them. This generation of Colombian football has been a shining token of pride for such a beautiful country. These players play their hearts out and unite an entire country behind fun and exciting football.

This isn't the same team as 2014, a ragtag, gritty yet exciting team led by newcomer "pretty boy" James Rodriguez and "Speedy Gonzalez" Juan Guillermo Cuadrado on the wing.
This time around, we expected experience and the introduction of Falcao as a key piece would take us even further than the quarter-finals. While Colombia had a tendency of being inconsistent during qualifiers, I was fully ready to witness Colombia break out and blitz their way into a dark-horse contender.

Instead, we started off on the wrong foot...
Carlos Sanchez's red card THREE minutes into the World Cup was not a pretty first impression to Russia. Colombia's 2-1 loss to Japan left us in a critical condition facing elimination. James, while battling a calf injury while training, played twenty minutes and looked slow. 
Colombia came back roaring against Poland 3-0 in exhilarating fashion. They proved they could still pull tricks out the bag and play their own style. Falcao finally scored, Cuadrado danced on the sideline, Mina made his way to the score sheet, and James set up two assists for his teammates. 
Further ahead, Colombia played a decent game against Senegal, and an unconvincing win by Colombia proved there was much left to be desired from the team...

Which leaves us against England. Let's be real here, Colombia could and should have played better. It wasn't a pretty match. Colombia lost their cool a few times, and it showed that they lacked composure on some instances. We desperately missed James out on the field, and we struggled to create opportunities. Regardless, Colombia left blood, sweat, and tears out on that pitch. Those warriors went head-to-head for over two hours against England. Questionable decisions by the referee ultimately cost us the game. And deservedly so, we lost in penalties...

Unfortunately, we'll be leaving behind certain players behind that created the new generation. Falcao most likely won't make it to 2022, and even then he wouldn't be our starting forward. "La Roca" Sanchez and Abel Aguilar probably won't have the legs to reach Qatar. We can hope David Ospina can stay in goal by the time we reach the next World Cup. Carlos Bacca and Cristian Zapata??? Questionable...
We're starting a new era of Colombian soccer. This was not an easy goodbye. Pekerman won't be back on the sidelines anymore.

Cuadrado, James, Quintero, and new talents Yerry Mina, Davinson Sanchez and my personal favorite, Mateus Uribe, all lead an exciting future up ahead. But as of now, we're eliminated from the World Cup. It's over for us. 
Maybe indeed, Football is coming home.


It better not be though.

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