With the challenge of getting the team out of the last box of the standings, Hernán Darío ‘Bolillo’ Gómez debuts this Saturday as Atlético Junior coach, facing Santa Fe, in development of the ninth date of the rented tournament.
The ‘Sharks’, coached until the beginning of this week by Arturo Reyes, barely add six points out of a possible 21, product of one victory and three draws.
His rival, until Tuesday, was experiencing a similar situation and his coach Harold Rivera was hanging by a thread. However, the 2-0 victory against América allowed them to jump to the middle of the standings.
For Gómez, who has not managed Colombian professional soccer for a while despite the fact that at the beginning of January he was confirmed as Bucaramanga’s strategist, before thinking about his team playing well, he must seek victory at any cost.
The three points would allow the team from Barranquilla to leave position 20 and restore calm to the fans.
In addition, the least you can expect from Junior del ‘Bolillo’ Gómez is that he is an ultra-attacking team and rather you have to think that the first thing the former national coach will look for is to give him defensive solidity.
For today, starting at 8:30 pm at the Metropolitano stadium in Barranquilla, the only thing that can be expected from the new version of Junior is to see how the ‘Bolillo’ arranges the chips.
Sebastián Viera is immovable and we will have to see how the defense builds, with which players he surrounds Juan Fernando Quintero and if he uses Carlos Bacca as a starter or sends him to the bench.
On the sides of Santa Fe, judging by what was seen on Tuesday in El Campín, coach Rivera found the ideal formation and the players recovered their attitude.
The 2-0 against América suggests that the ‘Red Express’ started. However, we have to see how he performs today, if his reaction is consistent and manage to embitter the debut on the technical bench of the Barranquilleros to ‘Bolillo’.
The ‘Cardinals’ had offensive and defensive problems, they were an unbalanced team, but on Tuesday they looked compact, they closed spaces for América and managed to get their goal to zero, to reach eight goals scored and eight conceded.
Junior, on the other hand, has only scored four goals, very little to have an offensive game generator like Quintero, and a goalscorer from Carlos Bacca’s tour.
Meanwhile, the programming begins as the duel between two teams that are surprises in the tournament, such as Envigado, which is fifth, and Boyacá Chicó, located in second place, with 13 points, two behind the leader Águilas Doradas, another of League revelations.
For the oranges, what they do is profit because their mission is to train players, show them and transfer them. Their average age is not more than 21 years.
For the checkers, the situation is different, since they urgently need points to forget about relegation.
Immediately afterwards, La Equidad, which does not take off and is 19th in the standings, with six points, faces Unión Magdalena, which has had a difficult start and is 17th with seven points.
Also, Deportivo Pasto, tenth in the general scoreboard, will host Deportivo Cali, a team that under the technical orders of Jorge Luis Pinto has greatly improved its performance, but the results are not given.