A handful of young figures, a few very important absences,
26 games in 23 days and two golden tickets to Paris 2024
will offer the Pre-Olympic of the South American Football Confederation that will be played starting this Saturday in Venezuela and in which the selected Argentine, led by
Javier Mascherano
, will try to qualify for a competition that saw him on the top step of the podium twice: in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.
This will be the 14th edition of the championship that brings together the U-23 teams
from the 10 member associations of Conmebol: the first was held in Peru in 1960, was a qualifier for the Rome Games of that year and was in the hands of Argentina.
For the first time, Venezuela will host a tournament with marked hegemony of the two giants of the continent:
the
Albiceleste
won it five times and Brazil, seven
(Chile won the title in 1992).
The contest will be divided into two phases.
In the preliminary round, those selected will be divided into two groups, in which they will face each other.
The teams that finish in the first two places in each zone will advance to the final phase.
In it, the four qualifiers will play again all against all.
The two best in that instance will qualify for Paris.
The clash between Ecuador and Colombia on Saturday at 5 p.m. at the Brígido Iriarte Stadium in Caracas will mark the starting signal.
That same day, at 8 p.m. and on the same stage, Venezuela and Bolivia will face each other.
The other member of zone A, Brazil, will only make its debut on Tuesday the 23rd against the Bolivians.
Argentina will debut against Paraguay on Sunday the 21st at 8pm at the Misael Delgado Stadium in Valencia, with capacity for 10,400 spectators.
In that same building and at the same time they will face Peru on Wednesday the 24th, Chile on Tuesday the 30th and Uruguay on Friday February 2nd.
The final phase will begin on Monday, February 5, will end six days later and will take place entirely at the Barquisimeto Municipal Stadium.
The matches of the competition can only be seen through
DirecTV Sports
.
Public Television will not broadcast them due to the decision of the national government not to acquire the transmission rights.
In September, Javier Mascherano began preparing the team that will participate in the Pre-Olympic.
Photo: Juan Ignacio Roncoroni / EFE.
Although in the
Olympic Games the 16 teams will be able to include three older footballers
in their under-23 squad, in the subcontinental qualifier these exceptions will not be admitted, so all teams will be made up of players born on or after January 1, 2001. To make matters worse, as the tournament is not part of the international FIFA calendar, the clubs were not obliged to give up their players, so most of the great South American figures of this age will not participate.
Thus, Argentina will be deprived of having more than a dozen elite men such as
Enzo Fernández, Alejandro Garnacho, Facundo Buonanotte, Lucas Beltrán, Máximo Perrone and Luka Romero.
In any case, it will not be the only damaged team: Brazil will not have Rodrygo, Gabriel Martinelli, João Pedro and Vitor Roque, among others;
Uruguay will lose Facundo Pellistri and Manuel Ugarte;
Ecuador will not have Moisés Caicedo and Colombia, Jhon Durán.
Beyond the absences, Argentina will try to revalidate its status as two-time Pre-Olympic champion: it won the last two editions that were held in 2004 in Chile and in 2020 in Colombia (qualification for the Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games 2016 was resolved in the South American U-20 Championships that were played a year earlier).
Valentín Barco is one of the three members of the Argentine squad who plays for a club abroad.
Photo: Juan Ignacio Roncoroni / EFE.
After a long preparation that began in September and included two friendlies with Japan (they lost 5 to 2 and tied 0 to 0), two with Ecuador (they won 3 to 0 and 2 to 0) and several with local soccer teams,
Mascherano finished to forge a team that allowed him to travel with high expectations.
“We are very satisfied.
We arrived with a good run of minutes, which was what interested us the most, because many of the boys are in preseason
and we have to do a different job.
We played a lot of friendlies because we were worried about that
,” the coach highlighted on Tuesday, a few hours before flying to Valencia.
That team that excites Mascherano has as captain
Thiago Almada
, world champion in Qatar 2022, and as another of its emblems
Valentín Barco
, recently transferred to Brighton & Hove Albion.
They are two of the three members of the team who are active abroad (the other is Lucas Esquivel, from Athletico Paranaense).
In addition, there are men who have accumulated more than a hundred matches in the First Division of Argentine soccer, such as
Juan Nardoni (Racing), Cristian Medina (Boca) and Juan Sforza (Newell's).
Federico Redondo, one of the midfielders of the Argentine under-23 team.
Photo: Juan Ignacio Roncoroni / EFE.
The bad news for the coach was the defection of
Julián Malatini.
The defender had been included in the roster, but after the deadline set by Conmebol to make changes (it was January 5) he was sold by Defensa y Justicia to Werder Bremen, which on Tuesday presented him as a reinforcement.
The German club wanted to have him immediately, so they did not authorize him to participate in the competition.
Due to this, the Argentine squad will be made up of 22 players and not 23, like most of their opponents.
“When you plan the squad, the ideal is to have two players in all positions. Malatini gave us the opportunity to cover two, as a center back and sometimes as a winger.
We are left with three players for two positions.
Now we will have to improvise, find some way around it.
We have players for that, but it is not ideal
,” lamented Mascherano, who had already lost Pedro De la Vega due to injury.
In that case, he was able to replace the Lanús footballer with
Claudio Echeverri
, River's new jewel, who was already sold to Manchester City.
The other great candidate to win one of the tickets to Paris is Brazil, the current two-time Olympic champion (they won in Rio de Janeiro 2016 and Tokyo 2020).
Coach Ramón Menezes
, who last year temporarily led the senior team, was confident in the possibilities offered by his squad.
“They are the future of Brazilian football.
“This is a very talented generation, but they have to prove it,” he said.
Ramón Menezes talks with Endrick, the great figure of the Brazilian under-23 team.
Photo: Antonio Lacerda / EFE.
The
Verdeamarela will have
Endrick
, the great hope of Brazilian football,
as its figurehead .
The 17-year-old kid, who was a fundamental part of the Palmeiras team that won the Brasileirão a little over a month ago (he scored 11 goals), has already been sold to Real Madrid, which will hire him in July, when he comes of age.
Endrick's attacking partner will be
John Kennedy, scorer of the decisive goal with which Fluminense beat Boca 2-1 in the final of the last Copa Libertadores
.
“They are two very promising young people who had an exceptional season and who like to score goals.
Already in the first contact there was an affinity between them, they felt very comfortable," said Menezes, who will also have another diamond: Andrey Santos, a 19-year-old midfielder who belongs to Chelsea and who played on loan in Nottingham last semester. Forest.
River defender Sebastián Boselli, one of the U-20 world champions who will be part of Marcelo Bielsa's Uruguayan U-23 team.
Uruguay
, Olympic champion in Paris 1924 and Amsterdam 1928, will try to compete between the two South American giants
, who in this competition will wear a commemorative t-shirt for the 100 years of the first of those medals.
Unlike the other teams, the light blue team will be led by the coach of the senior team:
Marcelo Bielsa.
The man from Rosario formed a squad whose base is made up of players who last year were U-20 world champions in Argentina, such as goalkeeper Randall Rodríguez, defenders
Sebastián Boselli
and Mateo Ponte, and forwards Luciano Rodríguez and Matías Abaldo.
Like Mascherano, Bielsa will only have 22 men: attacker Cristian Olivera was withdrawn at the last minute because his club, Los Angeles FC, revoked his authorization to travel when the deadline for submitting lists had already expired.