Medellin won the last Copa Mustang ever played with a combination of talent, luck, organization, strong desire, a goalkeeper who absolutely locked the nets and a goal-scoring beast who goes by the name of Jackson Martinez. Congratulations to them.

Fortunately for them, it seems next year their main squad will not be dismantled because besides Jackson, they’ll only need to replace centerback Samuel Vanegas, and that’s it. If they can keep their cohesive, collective game and find another striker as lethal as Jackson (not an easy task, by any means) they are Colombia’s biggest hope of redeeming itself in Copa Libertadores.

Love this new quickpress feature. It helps me getting into the “twitter” posting style that I really need to learn. Not everybody appreciates a long post. We’ll keep in touch. Happy New Year.

“All legal, reglamentary and dialogue instances with the hard core supporters in Colombian football have been exhausted with no positive results”: Dimayor

It all started years ago, in my teenage days in Bogotá where small groups of teenagers, all of them more audacious than I was, started forming Colombian versions of the Argentinean barras bravas, the hardcore supporters of every team that in the southern nation have powers and influence over teams way beyond just cheering their teams. The first one was the Comandos Azules (Blue Command) which started as a group of 10 or 20 kids just chanting and jumping on the eastern stands of El Campín, home of Millonarios and Santa Fe, Bogota’s oldest and most traditional rivals. The Comandos Azules support Millonarios and their rival fan base would quickly follow suit thus creating La Guardia Albirroja Sur (The Southern Red and White Guard). And so did the fans of the rest of the teams in the country including the fans of Nacional (pictured), authors of the latest offense. It was amazing to see how these small groups were evolving into bigger groups of 100s and 1000s and how finally they ended up covering whole sections in stadiums, normally the northern or southern curves, which are the ones with the cheapest tickets.

It was all fine and dandy when the kids just jumped and provided great visual entertainment, especially when the teams came out into the field. But that wouldn’t last long and these barras bravas started to become fully operational gangs and to have different gangs within themselves, which in turn into a phenomenon that it’s been seen only in Colombia when it comes to fan violence in football: violence among sets of supporters of the same team. This makes it even harder for the authorities as they now have to separate people wearing the same colors colors as it happened last Saturday went two factions of Nacional’s hardcore supporters squared off while their team was beating Quindío away in Armenia. Nowadays, in any of these barras bravas, you can find drugs, guns, grenades, knives and all sorts of things that have nothing to do in a football stadium.

Violence in football is a byproduct of the society we live in: low access to education, rampant unemployment and social recklessness on behalf of the government. While certainly the cures for these social illnesses cannot come from the fooballing establishment, they must, in turn, do better than the “solution” they are implementing starting next weekend: banning jerseys and gears from the visiting teams. I mean, they must think these are like schoolyard fights. And that just because they won’t wear the colors doesn’t they are not going to look for their next victims. It’s just sad and it shows that with this lack of competent leadership we can’t expect big changes. If the problem’s in the head, don’t expect the body to heal miraculously. They are also “considering” banning road trips for visiting fan groups. Give me a break. As if they don’t know that there have already been deaths because of football-related violence in this country.

But as much as I rant about the Dimayor (the entity that controls the league), they should also be recognized for the part of the decision that they got right: punishing Nacional’s fans because they were the one who caused the trouble even if their team was visiting. Their team will have to play two matches with no public because their fans’ misbehavior. But if it was up to me, I wouldn’t stop there. Here’s what I’d do:

1. Start legal actions against team owners who supported barrabravas. They often help them with buses for their trips, tickets or money for banners. But god knows what such support has been actually used for.

2. Ban footballing road trips permanently. Good that the police is considering it. I would cut it until there’s a drastic reduction in violence.

3. In Bogotá there’s a complex situation: there are big, hardcore fan groups of Medellin’s Atlético Nacional and Cali’s América de Cali. There haven’t been any clashes between them or between any of them and the fans of Santa Fe and Millonarios as of lately because it seems that the Bogotá police has beefed security measures up. Nevertheless, about a year ago there was a death because of a clash between Santa Fe and America’s supporters. I would encourage America’s and Nacional’s supporters in Bogotá to continue in the same line of conduct and warning them that any provocation to the fans of the local teams may wind up costing them their place at the stadium.

4. Along with continuing the security measures, we must have total identification of everyone who gets into a stadium by issuing fan IDs subject to electronic scanning. This has been discussed ad nauseum in Colombian press but still nobody takes action. This is a necessary investment in Colombian football and I hope that with Colombia hosting the Youth World Cup in 2011 it can be implemented.

5. Permanent video surveillance this is somewhat being implemented at El Campín where the whole stadium got to watch on big screen a full scale brawl between two factions of the Comandos at a Millonarios match last year. But it should be improved. The police must be able to have the names and faces of these criminals and throw them in jail, just like they did in England.

6. Start docking points for violence. This may be cause for an argument of “saints paying because of sinners” but I’m sure once it starts happening, violence will be greatly reduced.

7. Ban away fans and not just their clothing if such fan base shows precedents of violence. An option could be to ban them only in games that are “Class A” or high-risk games.

What would you do?

Juan Guillermo Cuadrado from Medellín to Udinese:
The italians have been quite interested in Colombian football after their great discovery of Christian Zapata have now nailed the player who seems perfect to become Camilo Zuñiga’s understudy at right wing (see below).  Altough his transfer smells a little as a case of “too early to leave”, the kid is tenacious and under the right guidance he can explode and become something remarkable. Udinese are also after hot prospect Wilson Cuero, an u-17 national teamer from Millonarios.

Camilo Zuñiga from Siena to Napoli.

The most recognized and improved Colombian abroad at the moment, Zuñiga is a beast in the right wing and i’m certainly glad that the world is realizing that. Hopefully Lavezzi will still be around and the Napolitans have a competitive squad to match Zuñiga’s quality.

Fabián Vargas from Boca to Almería.

Vargas was quick to jump ship after his contract with the Xeneizes after seeing how the Ribera outfit brought back Alfio Basile, a coach who permanently benched him (or more like vanished him) during his first tenure. It will be interesting to see how Vargas links up with Almería boss Hugo Sanchez who apparently made his signing a personal request. A clear example of taking the last train to Europe. Hopefully one for the long run.

Jonathan Estrada from Millonarios to Real Sociedad.

A deal which could be scuppered according to last minute reports, but if it goes trough it opens again the door for Colombians in this team (now in La Segunda) which had many clients in the past such as Victor Bonilla, John Viafara and Edwin Congo, with mixed results among them.

Aquivaldo Mosquera from Sevilla to América (Mex.)

Aquivaldo didn’t exactly become a fan favorite during his stance at Sanchez Pizjuán and I’m sure many will write off this move as the confirmation of him as an European failure. But Aquivaldo has been written off before and went on to become the rock solid leader of Pachuca’s defence. I expect good things from him in a league where he already excelled.

Brayan Angulo to Deportivo La Coruña

One of those that came out of nowhere and having nothing to do with Colombian football. But this 19-year-old has big shoes to fill as he could be the replacement for Filipe Luis, the next Barca signing for the left back position. <— Update. Angulo will now compete with Filipe, as he won’t go to Barça.

****UPDATE****

Abel Aguilar to Zaragoza

The present and future of Colombian D-mids continues his successful Spanish spell now in the Primera División. A logical development for a player who always demonstrated having what it takes to face big challenges. He will be in a league competing directly with Fabián Vargas, and that competition might well end up being for a starting spot in the NT.

Radamel Falcao García to Porto

A coup for the dragons after the Benfica rumor was loud and clear enough. But the Oporto outfit simplt outbid their Lisbon rivals for the signing of one of the most coveted properties of the South American Market. It was expected that he would link-up with another Colombian up front, but…

Wason Rentería to At. Mineiro

Despite having a breakthrough loan season at Sporting Braga, Wason ended being shipped back to Brazil as Porto plans for replacing Lisandro López seem to include more players than just Falcao. Still Brazil is known territory for Wason so his progress won’t be stopped.

Expect more updates….