D.C. United star Marco Etcheverry provides an inside look at Bolivia’s Copa America exit and Confederations Cup preparation for Soccer America.
Our 1-1 tie against Japan put us out of the Copa America in the first round. We went back to Bolivia frustrated and had to confront the local press, which criticized us for our performance.
We knew that our coach, Hector Veira, was going to make changes in the squad after our results in Paraguay ’99 รน and he did. He announced a training roster for the Confederations Cup that included four new players.
Before I joined the team again in Cochabamba on July 11, I spent a few days with my family in Santa Cruz rehabilitating my heel. That injury kept me off the field for most of Paraguay ’99, and I worked hard to be ready for the national team when we started preparing for the Confederations Cup.
I got to the hotel and met forwards Martin Menacho and Carlos Cardenas, midfielder Gonzalo Galindo and defender Lorgio Alvarez, who were brought into the team after the Copa America.
They are young and I hope they take advantage of the opportunity they have now with the national team. I also heard that my D.C. United teammate, Jaime Moreno, who was included in the training roster, is not traveling with us to Mexico and that forward Joaquin Botero is replacing him.
We will miss some players, like defender Juan Manuel Pena, who wants to rest for a little bit before he joins his Spanish club Valladolid for the preseason, but we have to support the youngsters who are joining the team because if they win, everybody wins.
‘I consider every rival equal’
Although I don’t like to talk about what we should work on during this camp, I think that after our 0-0 tie against Paraguay, 1-1 tie against Japan and 1-0 loss against Peru, we have to be conscious that, sadly, we couldn’t score. But the team has the skills to hit the net, because we do have great forwards. So we have to regain our confidence and working on giving the forwards the opportunities to score.
My first day of practice went OK. I felt I was overcoming the injury, although my goal is to be perfectly fit for the Confederations Cup.
Our first-round opponents are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico. We play again against the host, as we did in Copa America, but I consider every rival equal because there isn’t a big difference in the level of play as there was before. More important, we have to have confidence in ourselves.
I am planning to leave the national team for two days to travel to San Diego and play in the MLS All-Star Game. Although the Bolivian federation and the MLS had reached an agreement to let me stay with the national team until the end of the Confederations Cup, I told Veira I had a commitment to the league to be at that match.
D.C. United coach Thomas Rongen had called my house in Santa Cruz to ask me if I was available for the July 10 game against Colorado. I told him I was still recuperating from my heel injury.
When Bruce Arena left D.C. United and took the U.S. head coaching job, we knew that the transition to adapt ourselves to a new coach was going to be difficult. Bruce is a really well qualified coach, a great human being, and it was hard to get accustomed to another person, because we only knew Thomas through his records with other teams.
As time has gone by, he’s become close with the players and, thank God, we have now a good friendship.
I think D.C. United is performing well this season. We have a good group of young players, such as Antonio Otero and Jason Moore, who can have an impact in the league as Ben Olsen did last season. We were champions the first two MLS seasons and runner-up last season, and I have a strong feeling we can get the MLS Cup again this year.
as told to Soccer America Editor Amparo Simón