On November 30, 2021, José Néstor Pékerman was announced as the new technical director of the Venezuelan team that had been eliminated from the World Cup with the Portuguese José Peseiro. In his presentation, the Argentine assured that the intention of his arrival was to create a base focused on working with youth players. Almost a year and a half later, from Argentina they assure that the FVF would not have complied with the requests of the coach and that is why the decision to leave office, in the absence of official confirmation.
“We thought about creating a base and perhaps this will be continued by the Venezuelan media, the media that work in soccer, youth coaches, it is a projection for everyone, soccer will be valued. That is the path we are going to travel and the most important situation of what I want and this moment is the right one to enter the great competition”, José said on November 30, 2021 in the middle of his presentation. All these conditions in more than a year of work would not have been met.
The FVF would have breached Pékerman
The 73-year-old coach wanted a sports project focused on working with the youth categories, something to which the FVF would not have paid much attention and from there it would have been the Argentine’s disagreement that is reflected in one of the phrases he used in his presentation. “It will never be good to subject a player to do what is not good for him” (in this case a coach).
“We are taking this as knowledge, analysis of our players, to see, that this analysis helps us for project what follows in terms of knowledge of the task to reach a better level, to improve ourselves. There is a lot to do,” Pékerman said on March 28, 2022 in the run-up to the match against Colombia for the Qualifiers.
The intention of promoting the minor categories of the Venezuelan team was with the purpose of leading a long-term project in which the country could be positioned in the international arena at a competitive level. But the support of the Federation would not have been as expected.
Numbers of José Pékerman with Venezuela
- Matches: 10 (6 friendlies, 4 by Qualifiers)
- Wins: 5
- Ties: 1
- defeats: 4
- performance of: 53%
- Goals for: fifteen
- Goals against: 13
