The Estadio Do Maracana will host the match between Colombia and Uruguay today with Colombia ringing the changes around their squad. James Rodriguez is likely to get recalled to action along with Teofilo Gutierrez and Carlos Bacca who is fit for selection after getting over a thigh injury. In the Uruguayan dressing room Diego Forlan will hope to be selected in place of the banned Luis Suarez, although Edinson Cavani is also available to lead the line. Unfortunately for Diego Lugano, his injury misery will continue as he struggles to recover from a knee injury.
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All the talk in Uruguay this week, and indeed most of the tournament’s camps has been of Luis Suarez, who once again has hit the headlines with a biting incident involving new victim Chiellini of Italy. Following a four month ban handed out by FIFA from all football and football-related activities, sensationally including even training or entering a football stadium, Luis Suarez’s World Cup is over, leaving La Celeste without their best player. However, that aside, they still have experienced heads to call on including Diego Forlan, Edinson Cavani and Diego Godin.
In the Colombian camp, all is not peachy either, with star striker Radamel Falcao out due to injury, however that has not meant that Los Cafeteros have been without goals. Indeed they surpassed all negative expectations and plundered no less than nine goals in three group matches, which in turn gave them the tournament’s best shots to goals ratio at a massive 31%.
Even with Falcao out, their coach, Jose Pekerman switched to a 4-2-3-1, which allowed the exceptional Andre Cuadrado and the superlative James Rodriguez to bomb forward at any given moment, granting new creative license to the squad.
In their group alone, Colombia actually put more balls between the sticks than all the other three teams in their group combined, a wonderful and unusual achievement, but one that will have to be improved upon yet again when they come up against the tough, experienced and wily Uruguayans, who are certain to put up a big fight from the first whistle to the last. These sides have only met once in the World Cup, where Uruguay triumphed in 1962, however, in a further eight meetings Uruguay have triumphed in six, meaning that they are worthy of some respect concerning this particular fixture.
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With Uruguay still reeling from the shock decision by FIFA to effectively ruin their tournament, the Coffee Boys will be looking to capitalise on any nerves or edginess on the part of La Celeste, who will really need to draw on all their experience and streetwise guile in order to stem the creative onslaught that is sure to emanate from the Colombia midfield in the shape of Cuadrado and Rodriguez. The Uruguayan fans are likely to be outnumbered by Colombians and neutrals tonight, however La Celeste are famed for their “courage in adversity” ethic and being outnumbered will only serve to inspire them even further, their squad being a tight, functional unit, and their team focus almost unmatched by any other squad present at the tournament.
Possible Lineups:
Colombia: Ospina; Zuniga, Armero, Sanchez, Zapata; Yepes, Cuadrado, Aguilar, Gutierrez; Rodriguez, Ibarbo.
Mario Yepes is expected to be fit on time for Saturday after recovering from a hamstring injury.
Uruguay: Muslera; Caceres, Lugano, Godin, Pereira; Gargano, Arevalo, Rodriguez, Forlan; Stuani, Cavani.
Uruguay will be without star striker Luis Suarez following his 9 international matches suspension and four month ban from football.
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