COLOMBIA

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Venezuela semifinalista de
América. Celebran Lucena y Seijas.
“Tenemos tres años trabajando
entre los cuatro primeros”.
Venezuela, semifinalist of America.
Lucena and Sejias are celebrating,
“We‘ve been three years working
among the first four teams”.
sabe que nos dedicamos de lleno,
quiere, desea y sueña con
que estemos en el Mundial.
Y les digo que estamos haciendo
lo humanamente posible
y que tenemos todos los elementos
para ir. Los números juegan
mucho a favor, no podemos ni
conformarnos ni desorientarnos,
tratar de manejar también el divismo
que han tenido las otras
selecciones y lo empiezan a tener
nuestros jugadores. Eso también
ha ido fluyendo con naturalidad
y podemos mantener el autocontrol
para estos partidos finales.
-¿Cómo vive en lo personal
este desafío?
Yo tengo una ilusión de
muchísimos años atrás de dirigir
un Mundial de mayores. Es el éxtasis
para un entrenador, venimos
preparándonos y hoy contamos
con elementos que nos
pueden llevar y disfrutar de todo
eso. Uno puede ir a un gran club,
a una gran selección, pero nunca
puede ser en el aspecto sentimental
lo que uno siente por la
selección de su país. Estar en la
Eliminatoria y dirigir en el país en
que naciste, donde te formaste,
no tiene con qué pagarse.
86●CSF
On the verge of turning 40
years of age, the coach of
the Venezuelan National
Team feels that he has deeply lived
the latest five years with the
responsibility of leading ahead his
country’s world cup dream. Kind
and caring, with his fighting spirit
as valid as controlled, he has
always had numbers in mind to
illustrate the improvement
undergone by the Red Wine
team. In the decisive year for the
qualification to 2014 Brazil, he
states his reasons to support
his dream.
The National Team have all
their pieces well aligned with no
players suspended or injured.
We have worked hard, always
thinking about the current year
and we have arrived with good
possibilities. The players are in
the places we always dreamt of
having them, we are qualified
and there has been a marked
improvement in many aspects.
What is really different and we
must be very careful about, is the
fact that in the past pre-world cup
we started from the bottom and
gradually improved. Now, we are
inside, and we must find the way
to stay where we are. We know
the difficulties we have to
overcome, we did not play on the
latest date and hope to have the
necessary number of points that
will allow us to keep in the
forefront without being
desperate.
Is winning more as a local
team, a pending issue?
We have been good visitors
and it is not necessary to win all
the matches at home, since
neither Argentina has won them.
To qualify for the World Cup you
must bear in mind that each
match is difficult and we have
attained good results as visitors.
We tied in Uruguay and
Colombia, and won in Paraguay,
and that means that Venezuela as
visitor has something to be proud
of. If we do not win as a home
team, it is not because we cannot
get more points. Finally, we have
matches that may be against
some eliminated team which is
not the same as a direct rival.
It is match by match, not playing
with a magic ball.
What else do you think
the team may achieve
with their growth in the
present year?
Considering the way in which
Venezuela is playing, the team
may have a very important result
as a home team which may lead
us to keep on consolidating what
we are doing. It would be like
putting the cherry on the pie.
We have many possibilities of
generating goal situations and
finish them successfully.
Before, you made
calculations to reach 23 points
and now you are more
concerned with your rivals.
Is that so?
That is why I said that you
have to play match by match. I
knew that such a thing might
happen; the tournament is
hardly disputed and results are
rather close.
EFE
Nowadays, Paraguay, Bolivia
and Peru have great difficulties, so
they will have to win a number of
matches. That’s not at all easy
since numbers prove otherwise.
Venezuela, with their ups and
downs, will remain among the
four qualified sides. We will not
get to the World Cup by winning
all the matches; we will reach
the great prize by keeping a
competitive average that will
allow us to be among the
first teams.
Do you think that after
your triumph in Paraguay,
your team can play in many
different ways?
We have already proven our
standards in the Cup and also
when we played against Ecuador.
Many things have been
happening which we do not
boast of, but in the Copa América
against Paraguay, we played with
three attacking players and we
succeeded in defeating Ecuador
by playing very well with the ball.
We also had to suffer quite a lot
against Chile in the Cup, and
against Colombia as visitor and
also when we had to stop a
match in the middle like we did
with Uruguay to attack from the
bottom. They have a strong team
with some of the best defenders
of South America. It was so
proven in the Cup, growing
stronger afterwards with
Amorebieta and Túñez. We had
many choices. Trying new things is
not the result of a mere chance.
Opportunities appeared and clear
circumstances occurred. As the
players grow, people believe in
them. Venezuela have many
advantageous elements to their
favour such as the continuity of
their players and technical staff, a
young though experienced team
and favourable numbers in this
whole stage. We know that this
situation will be defined at the
final and we are preparing
ourselves for that special moment.
Are you planning to deal
with special situations in the
double match-days with
different groups of players?
Yes, that is something that
will probably occur, and we have
analyzed all those circumstances
during all this time. We’ve had to