Colombia Qualifies for the 'Other' World Cup

Colombia's Women's Team: On their way to the Olympics and the World Cup, in case you didn't notice. (Photo: El Tiempo)

Even as Colombia continues to feel the glow from its run in the football World Cup, and the country's self-esteem seems to be pegged to James Rodriguez's performance for Real Madrid, Colombia's qualifying for the Women's World Cup, to be held next year in Canada, received scant attention.

The women qualified by finishing second, after Brazil, in the Copa America, played in Ecuador. At the same time, they also qualified for the Olympics and Panamerican Games.

This is the second time the Colombia women have qualified, and in at least one sense it's a greater achievement than the men's qualifying, since there are places for far fewer teams (but fewer nations field women's teams). Colombia may stand a better chance at winning the women's cup, since the field appears more open than on the men's side, where a few elite teams dominate. In women's international soccer Brazil and Germany also do well, but Norway, Japan and the United States have all won women's cups, and even China and Canada have placed high.

A big boost for Colombian and Latin American women's soccer would be the creation of professional leagues. Women's leagues do exist in Europe, and one is struggling to survive in the U.S., but they receive minimal attention.

While a few Colombian women athletes have become heroines, it's perhaps a sad commentary that the greatest attention women athletes have received recently was for the supposedly suggestive colors of the women's cycling team's uniform.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Match in Egipto

A celebrar!

I happened to be in the hardscrabble Egipto neighborhood above La Candelaria this afternoon when Colombia won its match against Uruguay. The celebration was loud and predictable. 

Sport is fun, but I'm getting a bit tired of this obsession over which set of millionaires can kick a ball more times between some goalposts. After all, there just might be some more important things going on in the world...

The Egipto neighborhood, for example, high rates of violence, poverty and malnutrition. But that's all forgotten today.

In Egipto's traditional fruit and vegetable market, the vendors are glued to a TV set.

In an informal restaurant set up on a sidewalk, patrons celebrate Colombia's victory.

Young men wave flags on an Egipto street by La Circunvular.

This park off of La Circunvular was pretty desolate, except for a few kids skateboarding.

Waving the flag.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Fantasy Football Rankings?

Can coach Jose Pekerman, an Argentinian,
bring back Colombia's glory days?

Barring collapse, Colombia will soon qualify for a direct spot in next year's Football World Cup - for the first time since 1998.

Colombia might just possibly be entering into another period of football glory, similar but healthier than the cocaine cartel-financed 1990s, when Colombia was one of the sport's giants. As a populous, soccer-crazy nation, Colombia has every right to rival Italy, Spain and Argentina.

But is Colombia there already? I don't think so, despite the national team's number five place in the FIFA's world rankings.

Does anybody really believe that Colombia is better than soccer monster Brazil, which has won five

Can it really be? FIFA ranks
 Colombia above Brazil!

world cups? Or perennial contender Netherlands? What about the United States, which looks to qualify easily this year? And is Colombia really better than every single African national team? After all, this is a team which just a few weeks ago lost to laggard Venezuela.

Colombians should be proud of their team's imminent qualifying (but without forgetting that education, health care, peace, child nutrition and many other things are more important than sports), but without being overconfident. One day, perhaps, Colombia will return to world football royalty.

We'll know a bit more after tomorrow's match against Chile in Barranquilla.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombian History in Football

Colombian footballers above a table football game. 

Colombia's relationship with what is its popular national sport, if not its official one (which is tejo), has  been complex: marked by scandal, tragedy, violence and more than a fair share of disappointment - but always lots of passion.

Bogotá's National Museum has an exhibition called 'A nation made from football' which touches on many of these themes, altho it focuses on the national team's victories and disappointments on the field.

And disappointment. 'It's over.'

Colombia really should be up there with Argentina and Brazil on the international rankings: Colombia's has the population, large people, economic resources and the passion for the sport. But in internatioal competition, Colombia often falls short of its tiny neighbors Paraguay and Uruguay. 

Colombian football, known is some nations as soccer, experienced its golden period in the 1980s and '90s, thanks for a talented generation of players but also to an influx of money, not all of it earned legally.  The men's national team classified for the World Cup most recently in 1998. This year, its prospects aren't bright.

More than most nations, Colombian football has experienced drama off of the field as well as on. The most notorious incident was undoubtedly the 1994 murder in Medellin of defender Andres Escobar, a popular player whose own goal against the United States in the World Cup contributed to Colombia's elimination. Some people accused Escobar, without proof, of having been bribed to throw the game, in which Colombia was favored. Shortly after Escobar's return home he was shot to death in a Medellin nightclub's parking lot.

Pioneering women players. 

During the '80s and '90s, drug kingpins financed football teams both as a matter of pride and because they provided a convenient businesses with which to launder money, since their revenues were difficult to monitor. Today, some Colombian professional football teams continue to be contaminated with drug money, according to authorities. Colombians have recalled to me matches decades ago which were played as if in slow motion, because both teams had been paid to lose - or threatened not to score goals.

As for Colombia's current national team: it's in sixth place of the nine South American nations in the playoffs for the 2014 Brazil world cup. As things stand, Colombia wouldn't qualify - but lots of games have yet to be played.

Costa Rican women's team refused Colombian
 visas because they were 'immoral.'

Speaking of the news, I didn't see much about today's Colombian football, particularly its scandals: the problem of violent fans, called barras bravas, or the scandal which led to the national team's coach ouster after he was seen hitting his girlfriend after a night of partying.

For that matter, the exhibition gives women's football little space, but does show that futbol femenino has come a long way since 1951, when Colombia refused visas to Costa Rica's women's team because they 'violated public morals.' 

Real football. An evening futbolito match in La Candelaria. 

As far as I'm concerned, tho, the money, hero worship and stardom of sports is all secondary. To me, the most beautiful sport is the neighborhood pick-up game, with its good spirits, good fun and healthy exercise.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

¡Futebol Falam português!*

*Football speaks Portuguese!

Brazilian and Mexican players fight for the ball during a cup match.

Brazil and its one-time colonial master Portugal will play Saturday afternoon for the championship of the 2011 Fifa Under-20 World Cup. It's an interesting match-up between Portugal, once a world power, but now indebted and near bankruptcy, and Brazil, one of the world's future economic superpowers.

I expect that Brazil, the perpetual football world favorite, will win, but my sympathies lie with Portugal, since football is about the only glory it has left.

Portuguese finally have something to cheer about. 

Even tho Colombia's team disappointed by losing in the quaterfinals, the Colombian nation has been this tournament's big winner, thanks to an almost-flawless tournament notable for good sportsmanship, some exciting matches, nice weather - and, thank God, no terrorism or other violence. Undoubtedly, this will help Colombia land future and more important sporting events, such as the Panamerican games and even the real World Cup.

Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A REALLY IMPORTANT EVENT!

Improvised seating to see the game in La Candelaria.

This afternoon, much of male Bogotá stopped moving while two teams of men in Spain kicked a ball back and forth. The teams were named Barcelona and Real Madrid, and allegiance to them reaches almost religious levels here in Colombia - and, I suspect, much of the rest of Latin America.

Soccer god Messi races for the ball.

Sidewalks became impassible as people crowded around restaurant and bar windows to watch the televisions inside. Each time a goal was scored, the cheering carried for blocks.

Presidential elections? Natural disasters? Invasion from Mars? A match between Colombian football teams? None stops time here the way that 22 millionares kicking a ball back and forth across a field thousands of miles away in Colombia's one-time colonial master do. Could this be psychological recolonization?

In the end, analysts said it was a lousy game. But Barcelona won - Thank God!!! That's what makes life worth living!

Even this cop took his eye off of the bad guys.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Race to the under-20 World Cup

Ave. 26, alongside Independence Park. Will buses be running here July 29?

Colombia is to host the 2011 under-20 football World Cup. But before Colombia can use home team advantage to try to win the cup, it's got to win the race against time to have its cities and stadiums ready for Colombia's biggest-ever sports event. More info here.

The soccer World Cup starts July 29 and lasts 20 days. Bogotá officials have promised that the new Transmilenio lines will be operating, even if all the stations aren't finished yet. What do you think?

Ave. 26, which connects the airport with downtown, near the Central Cemetery.
Here, the roadwork has advanced and the stations are taking shape. 

I've also heard reports that repair work on some of the stadiums and associated facilities, particularly those in Cartagena and Cali, is behind schedule.

Rush hour traffic jam on Seventh Ave. Will visitors have to
suffer through this?

The U-20 Cup is sort of Colombia's coming-out party, its chance to show that the 'Colombia-as-failed-state' and 'Colombia-as-war-torn, drug-corrupted-wreck,' is all in the past. If Colombia does a good job on the U-20 World Cup, then, who knows, it could put itself in the running to host the REAL World Cup.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours