Original article

Venezuelan midfielder Luis Manuel Seijas and striker Cristian Nazarit will be back on the starting side for the next Liga Postobón game where Santa Fe will face Nacional.

Seijas returns to the lineup replacing Juan Carlos Quintero, who was ejected last weekend in the derby against Millonarios, while Nazarit will be back as a starter instead of Chilean Julio Gutiérrez, after overcoming a muscular discomfort that prevented him from playing the Bogota derby.

Luis Manuel told the media he feels in good shape, while Christian was happy and eager to return to the first team.

The cardinals finished their training at La Fortaleza Club with no major developments, and they will be working on Wednesday afternoon at El Campin Stadium.

INDEPENDIENTE SANTA FE

FECHA 9 TORNEO LOCAL COLOMBIANO.

Por Andrea Beltrán:

En la jornada de clásicos de la copa Mustang II / 09, Independiente Santa fe derrotó como local  a su rival de patio Millonarios 4 – 2 en un partido donde el cuadro cardenal mostró buen fútbol y dominio. La figura de la cancha, el argentino Omar Sebastián Pérez, deleito a todos los asistentes con su técnica y el primer gol del partido para la escuadra roja de la capital a los 5 minutos del primer tiempo. Otro extranjero de excelente presentación en la cancha fue el chileno Julio Gutiérrez que marcó el 2 a 0 parcial poniendo así a los rojos arriba en el marcador. El equipo visitante logró empatar el encuentro con goles de León Darío Muñoz y Ricardo Ciciliano.  Se fueron así para el entretiempo pero finalmente fueron los de Germán “Basilico” González que se quedaron con los 3 puntos gracias al gol del bogotano Mario Alejandro González quien ingresó  a los 63 minutos por el antioqueño Sergio Otálvaro, y el que cerró la victoria para Santa fe fue el chileno Gutiérrez anotando un golazo al minuto 74, el segundo tanto para su cuenta personal en el partido, y el cuarto para los Albi-rojos.

El encuentro se realizo en el tradicional Nemesio Camacho “El Campin” estadio de la Ciudad de Bogotá el 12 de Septiembre de 2009 a las 6:30 pm, el árbitro fue José Hernando Buitrago.

Ya pasada esta jornada se viene el Junior de Barranquilla el 19 de Septiembre a las 6:20pm, Santa fe jugara otra vez en casa y espera ver nuevamente las graderías del “Neme” llenas. Así que todos a acompañar a nuestro equipo. Las boletas ya están a la venta.

Tomada de www.santafecd.net Foto: Diego Rendón.

“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?