This Wednesday the departure of José Néstor Pékerman from the Venezuelan National Team was made official. “For the FVF it is essential that all those who make up our work team share the highest standards of commitment and delivery”, reads in the published statement. The Argentine leaves the team with 10 games played, six for friendlies and four for Qualifiers.
His debut was on January 28, 2022 in the 4-1 home win against Bolivia on the way to the Qatar World Cup. Salomón Rondón scored a hat-trick and Darwin Machís confirmed the victory for the red wine in that match. However, the euphoria of the first game was squandered with the defeat by the same score against Uruguay just four days later.
Pékerman ended the South American Qualifiers with two defeats against Argentina 3-0 and against Colombia by the slightest difference. After that, Venezuela played six friendly matches thinking about what would be the project of the coaching staff in the long term. However, the entire process was aborted. It leaves a performance of 53% in its favor, with 15 goals in favor and 13 against.
Results of the Pékerman era in Venezuela
- 1/28/2022 – South American Qualifiers: vs. Bolivia (L) 4-1.
- 2/2/2022 – South American Qualifiers: vs. Uruguay (V) 1-4.
- 03/26/2022 – South American Qualifiers: vs. Argentina (V) 0-3.
- 3/30/2022 – South American Qualifiers: vs. Colombia (L) 0-1.
- 1/6/2022 – Friendly: vs. Malta 1-0.
- 9/22/2022 – Friendly: vs. Saudi Arabia 1-0.
- 9/22/2022 – Friendly: vs. Iceland 0-1.
- 9/27/2022 – Friendly: vs. United Arab Emirates 4-0.
- 11/15/2022 – Friendly: vs. Panama 2-2.
- 11/20/2022 – Friendly: vs. Syria 2-1.
Reasons why Pékerman would have left Venezuela
The coaching staff would have been dissatisfied with the management of the minor divisions that the FVF had been giving them, according to reports in the Argentine media. Failure to comply with this item would have led to Pékerman not feeling comfortable on the bench of the selected wine seeing that they did not pay attention to the juveniles.
“We are taking this as knowledge, analysis of our players, to see, that this analysis helps us to project what follows in terms of knowledge of the task to reach a better level, to surpass ourselves. There is a lot to do”, said the coach before facing Colombia in the Qualifiers.
