Reinaldo Ruedoa From Flamengo – The season starts today for giants Rio Flamengo, who gathered today for pre-season training ahead of a year of pressure to win the Libertadores Cup or the Brazilian Championship. The club have already spent several years working hard to balance the books, and along with the finances so the fans can’t wait for some serious awards.
BUT THE PROJECT COULD HAVE BEEN SPOTTED FROM THE RAILS ON DAY ONE.
The focus on the first day of the working year is not on the players, but on Colombian link login sbobet coach Reinaldo Rueda. After winning the 2016 Libertadores in fine style with Atletico Nacional from Medellin, Flamengo took him south in August last year. They have efficiently given priority to 2018. Rueda will need a few months to learn about her new surroundings. In his sequel he took them to two finals – in the domestic cup and the Copa Sudamericana. Both are missing, but at least the coach has long watched the players available to him and the standard of the opposition. Sleep in, won’t fall on the last fence in 2018.
But Chili stopped knocking on the door. The reigning champions in South America failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup . Their golden generation, by far the most extraordinary in the events of this country, is coming to an end. They had already identified Reinaldo Rueda as the one who brought them forward, and seemed ready to reward him well for his efforts.
Chile certainly had rational reasons to panic. Beyond the top two Brazil and Argentina, the story of the South American national team is full of peaks and troughs – a generation made a big impression, but their successors have been unable to reproduce anything like similar quality and the team went through tough times. It happened to Rueda Colombia itself after the Valderrama generation of the late 80’s and early 90’s. It’s happening in Paraguay at the moment; since adding to Spain’s worries at the 2010 World Cup they are no longer eligible. And perhaps the most drastic example is Peru, who after a generation of Cubillas receded in the early 80’s had failed to qualify for the next World Cup – until this one in Russia, where they edged out Chile for a play-off slot, placing.
In the end, then, that the Confederations Cup final against Germany proved to be the final hurray for Chile’s extraordinary generation, many of whom made their way through the 2007 Under-20 team.
And therein lies the problem. Chile’s next U-20 teams are not as good as this one. It can be argued that insufficient importance has been given to them. Of course throughout the successful reign of Jorge Sampaoli in charge of the senior team there has been a worrying lack of integration with the Under-20s. Chili had already identified Rueda as the one who fixed it.
THE QUALIFICATIONS ARE CLEAR.
Rueda led Ecuador to the last World Cup, and Honduras to the previous one. But he first made his name as a youth development specialist, guiding Colombia to the semi-finals of the Under-20 World Cup in 2003. So he has considerable experience at both ends of the scale.
It was easy to understand why the task was of interest to Rueda. Not only does it match his skills (and reportedly, pays too well for him), it also offers an unthinkable level of job security in his current job. With Chile he will be safe at least until after the 2019 Copa America in Brazil. With Flamengo, on the other hand, his contract runs until the end of the year – but given the current fever for serious titles, there is not the slightest guarantee that he will last that long.
The Chilean press explained that he could be presented as coach of the new national team on Thursday. Flamengo, meanwhile, explained that they had not heard anything from their coach, who is spending the festive season in his native Colombia. The following week club president Eduardo Bandeira explained that Rueda was the coach and there was no draft B available. In the next few days he could be obliged to start working his way down the alphabet.