Global disappointment for Venezuela

Venezuela suffered a global disappointment on Tuesday. The blow was tremendous. Venezuela had hoped to play in the playoff for the 2026 World Cup against a team from Oceania, but after losing to Colombia by a lopsided score (3-6 ), and Bolivia failing to lose against Brazil, they were eliminated. The Venezuelan national team will not play in what seemed like it would be its first World Cup ever.

The Venezuelan national team had gone eight matches unbeaten at home, with four wins and four draws. To qualify as seventh in the CONMEBOL qualifiers, they had to copy Bolivia's result. That was enough. However, they fell resoundingly to James Rodríguez and Lucho Díaz's team. The events in El Alto didn't improve matters: the Bolivians won 1-0 against Brazil, who came out with a heavy set of substitutes. The goal came after a very strict penalty.

Venezuela is a baseball-loving country that has recently become a soccer fan as well. In a nation where good news is scarce, many people had pinned their hopes on seeing their national team compete in next year's World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. This disappointment is compounded by the simmering tension with Washington, which has deployed an armed fleet nearby, and the ongoing political conflict that worsened last year when Nicolás Maduro proclaimed himself president of Venezuela without having produced any documents proving his victory.

The national team's defeat has been a cold shower for fans who, both within the country and abroad, felt closer than ever to experiencing the joy of attending the most popular sporting tournament on the planet.

The dream of going to the World Cup had become one of the natural lifelines for a citizenry experiencing a costly and prolonged social and economic decline, and in which a conflicted and tormented relationship with the country is becoming entrenched.

Venezuela, a country that thought it had definitively left behind its status as a regional football Cinderella, has suffered a six-goal defeat for the first time in more than 20 years. “This, in my opinion, is the biggest disappointment Venezuelan sport has ever experienced in its history,” stated journalist and broadcaster Humberto Turinese in his television commentary. “All the fans are disappointed; all the investment, all the support from the public and from private companies, has resulted in a disappointing result. An eighth-place finish is inexcusable after having had everything at hand, all the resources to succeed.”

The Venezuelan national team's encouraging performance at the 2024 Copa América, and the consolidation of a generation of players with proven proficiency in leagues in Spain, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States—such as Jon Aramburu, Yangel Herrera, Jefferson Savarino, and Salomón Rondón, a veteran Premier League legionnaire—had fueled a seemingly well-founded hope for the possibility of going to a World Cup for the first time.

The technical director of the Vinotinto, the Argentine Fernando el bocha Batista , had been exhausting his credibility with the fans after a successive display of poor quality matches - particularly against Uruguay in Montevideo and Argentina in Buenos Aires - even in cases in which they won, as happened in the last victory against Bolivia.

After a few months of honeymoon with fans and the sports press, discontent over the Vinotinto's poor results under Batista's leadership has been spreading.

"I want to apologize to the Venezuelan people for not being able to achieve the Vintotinto dream. This is a very difficult time, both personally and athletically. I thank everyone who supported me throughout this process," he stated, very briefly, and with a visibly affected expression. His departure is taken as a given.