Peru Draws with Tunisia

For the international break, Peru squared off against Tunisia away from home.  The Peruvians can return with a bit of good and bad from Africa after putting in some great work and some very silly mistakes.

The Peruvians’ passing game was on display for this match, and when they could secure possession, they did brilliant things with the ball.  Unfortunately, their passing and attacking flair really didn’t produce much.  As is very typical with these types of games, the buildup play is excellent, but the finishing touch just isn’t there.  Early in the game, Peru dominated the match but poor finishing from Paolo Guerrero saw the score sit at 0-0.  The final ball just could not find the Peruvian strikers, and the game started to cool down.  That’s when Tunisia turned on— their physicality in midfield was certainly felt by the Peruvians.  It was the classic conflict of flair versus brute force, and the game swayed back and forth as neither side could exert their philosophy to the fullest.

“LA TRI” Respected at Home

The Ecuadorian national team faced its “country brother”, Peru, on November 15 2011 during the fourth round of the South American qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.  The Ecuadorian team’s optimism towards the match gave their fans and country a great sense of pride and satisfaction. The Ecuadorians had a great performance and, according to people familiar with the national team, their excellent presentation on the pitch come from the hard work done at practices. 

The game was balanced for  until the beginning of the second half. A ferocious counterattack of “La Tri” resulted in a total explosion at the stadium Olimpico Atahualpa when Edison Mendez scored a goal that perforated the net after taking a spectacular pass from Christian Benitez in the 69^th minute.

Peru Lose a Hard Fought Match

In Peru’s final match of the international break they visited Santiago, Chile. The match was extremely exciting and hard fought by both teams, with Chile emerging the eventual victor. Peru played valiantly, but in the end, a lazy first half and some questionable refereeing  contributed to their loss by the deceptive margin of two goals in a 4-2 thriller.                

Peru went into the match with confidence, having finished third in the Copa America over the summer and thrashing Paraguay, a World Cup contender, in a 2-0 domination the day before. Perhaps this led them to be complacent in the first half, but honestly I think the Peruvians looked more  nervous than  overconfident. Despite shaky defense, Chile had done their homework. Los 4 Fantasticos were all double and triple marked, basically neutralizing the Peruvian attack. Peruvian defenders did not attack very often and the Peruvian midfield played, by and large a supporting role, leaving the attack up to just “the Fantastic 4”, making the strategy of multiple markers on each player possible.

Peru: The Fantastic Four

On Friday Peru opened their World Cup qualifying campaign at home against Paraguay. Peru dominated the entire game, forcing Paraguay to take shots from outside the area and from free kicks, while Peru pushed on hard and were unlucky not to score more. The game ended in a 2-0 victory, but the margin of victory should have been greater.

In the buildup to the match, all eyes were on “the fantastic four” of Claudio Pizarro, Paolo Guerrero,Juan Vargas, and Jefferson Farfan, who are viewed as Peru’s most marquis players, to really step up and produce for Peru. Most were missing from Copa America (Pizarro and Farfan were injured and Vargas was not 100% having just recovered from injury) and football fans and pundits were curious to see how Peru would perform with their top players after such an impressive Copa America. Still others hypothesized that the influx of too many egos would unbalance a Peru squad that was perhaps successful because of players who were concentrated on winning matches rather than their reputations.