Soccer-World-Pekerman gets second shot at finals with Colombia

BOGOTA, April 28 (Reuters) - Colombia coach Jose Pekerman has considerable World Cup experience even if his biggest successes came at under-20 level, steering Argentina to three titles between 1995 and 2001. He then led a much-admired Argentina senior side to the quarter-finals in Germany in 2006 where they lost to the hosts on penalties, after which Pekerman resigned. The 64-year-old Argentine took charge of a senior international side again in January 2012 when he succeeded Leonel Alvarez after Colombia made a poor start to the qualifiers by collecting four points from their first three matches. His arrival triggered a turnaround and Pekerman, who played nearly half his career in Colombia as a midfielder for Independiente Medellin, developed a strong, confident team. He did not make wholesale changes, but got the best out of a talented squad by focusing on their attacking instincts and a game influenced by Argentina. A key change was the faith he put in Radamel Falcao, who was not a regular in the starting line-up under the more defence-minded Alvarez. Falcao's strike partner Teofilo Gutierrez also won a regular place in the side and has shown better scoring form for Colombia than for his club side River Plate in Argentina. He scored six goals in the qualifiers to Falcao's nine. Pekerman's plans, however, suffered a big setback with Falcao's knee ligament injury in January and Falcao faces a fight to be fit for the tournament in Brazil. After Pekerman led Colombia to the finals, President Juan Manuel Santos offered him Colombian nationality, an indication of his status and popularity in the country. Pekerman will undoubtedly be pleased if Argentina, whose squad includes many players who were part of the junior sides he coached, also go far in Brazil. The coach seems to have a gift for working with talented young players and he played an important, easily overlooked part in Lionel Messi's Argentina career. No longer involved with Argentina's youth teams, Pekerman still helped to ensure Messi played for his country when he was also being wooed by Spain. Eventually, having taken over the senior Argentina team from Marcelo Bielsa in 2004, he gave Messi his debut the following year. (Writing by Rex Gowar in Buenos Aires; Editing by Tony Goodson and Mike Collett)