Playing and standing out at height is not for every footballer and they end up knowing thatin the long run, the clubs of the Liga1 who have height in their favor. It is no longer just knowing how to get foreign reinforcements right, but sign players who can perform in high-altitude cities.
Carlos Garcés, Cienciano’s Ecuadorian goalscorer who will try to be the top scorer in Liga1 2024. Cienciano
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In that sense, It is to highlight what Deportivo Garcilaso has done in 2023. In its debut in the First Division, the Cusco club opted for three Ecuadorian soccer players and the Argentine Santiago Giordanawhich was preceded by scoring 11 goals with Mushuc Runa of Ecuador in 2022. The bet was successful because Pedacito de Cielo was the protagonist and achieved a historic qualification to CONMEBOL Sudamericana 2024 thanks to the goals of Giordana, top scorer in Liga 1 2023 with 22 goals.
Their compatriots Cienciano and Cusco FC also opted for Ecuadorian players or those who came from the LigaPro, and it didn’t go badly for them. Carlos Garcés scored 16 goals with Papa while Uruguayan winger Mauro Da Luz scored 6 goals and gave 2 assists.
For League 1 2024, Several clubs took note of what was done by the Cusco clubs and also bet on the Ecuadorian market to reinforce their squads.
Deportivo Garcilaso could not retain Giordanabut kept the bet on the Ecuadorian Andrés Chicaiza and added his compatriots Luis Caicedo y Renny Semestera. Cienciano, for his part, managed to retain Garcés while Cusco FC did not sign players directly from the LigaPro, but they did sign players who had time for their clubs such as Juan Manuel Tévez, Nicolás Silva and Lucas Colitto.
In the case of the other high-altitude clubs, ADT added the Ecuadorians John Narváez (ex-Melgar and Mannucci), Ángel Quiñónez and Joao Rojas (ex-Deportivo Garcilaso), Comerciantes Unidos to Édgar Lastre while The Cankas signed fellow Ecuadorians Kevin Becerra, Ángel Ledesma and Panamanian Joseph Cox, from LigaPro.
The performance of the players who come from Ecuadorian football has not left the League 1 clubs indifferent, so Unión Comercio moved to LigaPro to join Ecuadorian Byron Angulo, Paraguayan Teodoro Paredes and Uruguayan Facundo Queiróz.
In the case of Universitario, the fact that Fabián Bustos has a long career in Ecuadorian football caused him to decide on a former coach like the Ecuadorian Segundo Portocarrero to be the last foreign reinforcement of the current Peruvian soccer champion.
The Argentine and Uruguayan markets were always the priorities of the Peruvian clubs to make reinforcements, but The Ecuadorian market is gaining weight not only in the top clubs due to the performance of the exported players, but also due to the level of the LigaPro itself, considered the 17th best league in the world in 2023, according to the International Federation of History and Football Statistics (IFFHS).