CURACAO VS BOLIVIA PREVIEW & PREDICTION
At the Ergilio Hato Stadium in Willemstad, Curacao and Bolivia will meet for the second time in a friendly chat in just three days on Tuesday. Once again the bookmakers are completely wrong with their odds, so be quick!
Curacao:
The price range of Curaçao is indeed still fairly empty, though the football association of the island is working hard on the road. The country won the Caribbean Cup last year for the first time in history by shaking off six-point finalist Jamaica in the final. The advance is largely due to the many Dutch professionals with Antillean roots. For example, Darryl Lachman (Willem II), Charlison Benschop (Hannover 96), Eloy Room (PSV) and Cuco Martina (Everton) got a call from national coach Remco Bicentini.
That Curaçao really nice football can be found in the first exhibition game against Bolivia last Saturday. The homeland was the parent and after half an hour of play, took the lead via Gino van Kessel. Curaçao caused the most danger, but in the second half goalkeeper Room still had to give in. Center defender Lachman got the ball unluckily on his heel, after which the ball landed in an arc over the bewildered Room in the goal: 1-1. An acid own goal, especially because the Curaçao defense actually had little to fear from Bolivia.
It is still unclear what Bicentini intends to do next Tuesday. Will he continue to build on the same basic eleven who did so well last Saturday? Or does he still want to see some other players at work? Since players such as Van Kessel (Oxford United), Guyon Fernandez (Delhi Dynamos) and Charlton Vicento (Shermaine Martina) and Shermaine Martina (MVV Maastricht) all started on the bank last Saturday, he has at least one – for regional terms – broad selection.
Bolivia:
Bolivia finished in the South American World Cup qualification in the penultimate place and wants to use the two practice games against Curaçao to build a new team. National coach Mauricio Soria has left almost all the usual names at home and has deliberately opted for a young selection that has to show in the coming years. Last Saturday, however, it became painfully clear that El Verde still has a long way to go. The visitors hardly gained a foothold in the Ergilio Hato Stadium and they were lucky that thanks to Lachman’s own goal, a defeat was saved. The local media spoke of a default, although it is now customary for Bolivia to drop through the ice. The reasonable results in home games in the rarefied mountain air of the more than 4,000 meters high La Paz hide much, but prior to part one of the diptych against Curaçao Bolivia had already lost fourteen of its last fifteen international matches outside their own national borders.
Bolivia has been warned and knows what to expect on Tuesday evening. However, it is unclear with which basic eleven Soria will come up. Prior to the trip to Willemstad, the national coach already wanted to see the young guard at work, although he also chose players like Carlos Lampe, Diego Bejarano, Alejandro Chumacero, Raul Castro, Jhasmani Campos and Juan Arce last Saturday. quite a bit routine. Despite their presence, the visitors barely survived. It might be that he will save them on Tuesday, though that would mean that Bolivia would play with a bred B-team. Apart from the six aforementioned players, only defender Erwin Saavedra has more than ten international matches behind his name. Anyway, the current Bolivia with among others the eighteen-year-old midfielder Ramiro Vaca and the seventeen-year-old midfielder Jhon Garcia in the ranks clearly a team under construction.
PREDICTION: Under 2.5 goals @ 1.71
