A Heavenly Call Up? Angel On Lara’s Radar

By: Dave Martinez | September 18th, 2008

With the absolutely humiliating display of football Colombia has been exhibiting lately, it was a foregone conclusion that technical director Jose Luis Pinto would have to walk the plank. Well, it happened. And in his place, interim coach Eduardo Lara, is looking to mend fences with those shunned by Pinto. That would include former national main stays like Inters Cordoba, who ruled himself off of the national team until Pinto was gone, Yepes, and keeper Calero.

But the name we care most about is Juan Pablo Angel, who has also been put back into the national team discussion. Though Pinto did reach out to Angel earlier in the season, nothing ever came out of their conversations. Lara, doing his best impression of a reform politician, is uniting Colombia once more for a final run at the World Cup Qualifiers by reaching out to the veterans that brought Colombia so far throughout the years. Angel could be a key cog in this machine which has struggled mightly to find the back of the net in the early stages of qualifiers.

My question isn’t whether or not this will improve Colombias chances because, frankly, any team that is in direct competition with Argentina can fall off the face of the earth, and would be lucky if I even showed a reaction. My question is – When will Lara call on Angel? And when he does, and sees what Colombia has been missing, how would a call up effect the Bulls long term?

FIXTURES

INTERNATIONAL:

COLOMBIA (home) v. Paraguay – October 11th

BRAZIL (home) v. Colombia – October 15th

RED BULLS:

October 9th @ Real Salt Lake

October 18th v. Columbus

Looks like the answer to that one is – not much. I could see Angel missing the game @ RSL to get some training in with the Colo squad. But he would be back for the important Columbus showdown at home.

And boy, what I would do to see Angel take on Brazil and net himself a couple of goals! It would be the ONLY time I would ever cheer for Colombia.

So share your thoughts! What impact, if any, would Angel have on Colombias WC dreams? Do you see this move happening?

img credit: soccerbyives.net