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MADRID – The Dominican Republic is counting the days to make its unexpected Olympic debut in soccer.
The Caribbean nation, whose true king sport is baseball, has X-rayed its diaspora for the competitive experience offered by young footballers training in European leagues, players who in many cases will defend their jerseys for the first time at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
this”Sedo Football” As we all know, the national team entrusted the U23 team that made history at the Olympics a few months ago to Ibai Gomez, the former Spanish player of Athletic Bilbao and Alaves, who, despite hanging up his boots last year, has behind him a wealth of experience as a coach at a lower level.
“The truth is, the first call surprised me a little bit because even though this is my 14th season as a coach, I’m starting my professional career now,” Gomez said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
After reviewing “the program, the football players there, and watching over 100 videos of players, we saw that there was something good that could be done,” so Gomez and his team took on a challenge in which he hopes to “contribute our part” to the development of football in the Dominican Republic.
In Paris, Gomez assembled a team of 18 players and sought to exploit “the fact that Dominican footballers have a fairly high level of physique and technique,” he said.
To compensate for a certain “deficit” at the tactical level, the coach has recruited several players with dual nationality, among them Dutch or Spanish, such as Edgar Puyol and Rafa Núñez, who already have “those working tools that they had in Europe, and I think “a little more evolved in that sense. “
For many, the Olympics will be their first official encounter with a Dominican team.
One of them is Oscar Ureña, who has just been promoted to the Spanish First Division on loan from Girona to Leganés. He is the youngest of three brothers and the only one in the family who was born in Figueres, Catalonia, far away from the Caribbean country where his parents immigrated.
“I had the opportunity to represent my roots, which are ultimately in my blood. They (his family) are very happy and proud that he’s leaving,” Urena told the AP, acknowledging that despite previous contacts with Seedorf Tebor, “a lot of the blame for his leaving is on Ibai,” and that in the end “he called me and he told me it was important and that I would love it.”
In addition to opening the door to his career for his chosen team in the middle of the transfer season, Ureña’s wish is to “give his best for collective and individual performances, especially for the national team. ” This is an opportunity that I never imagined (…) and should not be missed. “
You can read: RD team has already played against France in Toulon
The Dominicans have earned their ticket to Paris for the CONCACAF U20 Championship in July 2022 and they will need to gather all their talents to face three opponents in Group C. They will play against Egypt on Wednesday, two days before the opening ceremony – in Nantes, then they will face Spain in Bordeaux and Uzbekistan at the Parc des Princes in Paris.
“The game of football becomes fairer every day and it’s more difficult to win,” Gomez said of the opponents in the first stage. “I think it will be an interesting game and a good team.”
To face them, he will try to deploy a “tight team, pressing high, trying to be the protagonist with the ball, always as far away from the goal as possible”, relying on the influence of his main mentors Marcelo Bielsa – “whose attacking level I think is unique” – Ernesto Valverde, Marcelino and especially his father Miguel Ángel Gomes, “who I followed since I was a child, in every place, every team, every game where he trained”.
The first contact between the coaching staff and the players was in March, during a 10-day training camp, where they played two games against Paraguay, losing one and winning one, leaving a good impression.
“I enjoyed it a lot. We made a great team and I really want to enjoy it again,” Urena said.
Although Gomez considers Spain, Egypt and Uzbekistan as the favorites to start, his goal for his first and so far only game on the bench for the Dominican Republic is “to get through the group stage and then see how far we can go (…) I think that is the goal we have to set. We are really ready to achieve it.”
Urena went further, saying, “I’m happy to be able to say that not only did I compete in the Olympics, but I also won a medal.”
In a country that loves baseball – it exports the most players – and where playing in the World Cup is hardly a dream, the forward believes Paris can be a turning point in driving the growing popularity of the game.
“There is a lot of talent here that can do great things in the future,” Urena said. “I think that our good results in the Olympics will encourage the country and the kids, and they will want to play football and represent the Dominican Republic.”
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