Colombian football has grown accustomed to standing out on the international stage. The senior men’s team reached the final of the 2024 Copa America and recently punched their ticket to the FIFA World Cup 26™ after missing out on Qatar 2022.
The women’s senior team took everyone’s breath away at the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™, while both the U-17 and U-20 women’s team enjoyed excellent performances in their respective World Cups in 2024, including serving as the host nation for the U-20 women’s showpiece.
Now it is time for the U-20 men to take the stage, as they begin their campaign in the FIFA U-20 World Cup Chile 2025™ in Group F against Saudi Arabia, followed by contests with Norway and Nigeria. At the helm of this aspiring group is Cesar Torres, who tells FIFA that Colombia are embracing the challenge of trying to make a deep run.
Cesar Torres: The expectations are big. We’re coming in feeling excited about our opener, in the first World Cup for the majority of the staff and for all the boys. And there is the dream of trying to bring home a first World Cup title to our country. It’s a motivation that burns inside us every day.
I think Colombia football is in a very good moment right now. We got to the final stages of qualifying in the Copa America for U-20s. We came so close in finishing as runners-up in the South American U-17s. Colombia has been doing a good job. There is ability, there is talent, and you see that the more you compete at a high level, the closer you come to winning, and that’s exciting for us.
After qualifying, the players started to compete more in their clubs, both at the domestic and international level. There were players who emerged that are here today but weren’t in qualifying. I think the individual quality improved. And then we maintained consistency by meeting every month and we were able to strengthen our way of playing.
I would say our concentration. The start of our game against Brazil cost us the title. They scored a goal on us from a set piece. Also at the end of the game against Argentina after a dead ball. Those are specific issues of concentration, of focus, of needing to stay on top of things the whole game. We have talked about it and worked on it and we’ll be stronger on it in the World Cup.
Well, all four teams are very competitive, but with totally different styles. Saudi Arabia is a very solid, dynamic side that is strong in duels. They play direct with physically strong players. It’s the same as Norway, but Norway have a little more quality when it comes to creating, but they also have fast players who are physically imposing. Nigeria are fast, powerful and strong. Colombia is a dynamic team that likes to pressure, that has quality and always looks to score.
I’d say it the individual quality. This team has to compete at a high level and either match or win those physical duels with opponents. But in the end our individual quality has to prevail and that our collective way of playing appears so we can create chances in every play.
We were just talking about that today. We have to be guarded. We have to think of ourselves as a group, as a team. At the same time, we also have to look inside ourselves to have self-control, to manage our emotions, to speak well to each other. We do an exercise that shows that the person we talk to most during the day is ourselves, so the kind of messages we send ourselves say a lot about what we then express outwardly. We are very ambitious, but we have to have self-control, have quality in our play and not appear to be overstepping the mark when competing.
