The luxury of wasting Jhon Arias... (Opinion)

They rightly say that our decisions determine our destiny. And if the Colombian national team has spent five matches squandering its savings and postponing its qualification for the 2026 World Cup qualifiers , what fortune will it be building for what awaits it in a year?

It seems far away, but in the blink of an eye, we'll be watching the same Club World Cup stars defending their nations' interests, and we'll be wondering what we could have done to change the course of a destiny we neither want, nor deserve, nor have to endure.

Although players and coaches complain, and even Klopp makes predictions of terrifying injuries due to the difficult World Cup that we football fans are currently enjoying to the fullest, this tournament, which pits the best of Europe against America, is teaching a lesson we cannot ignore.

Today, the best player in this clash of the world's most powerful clubs is a Colombian, the only three-time MVP, the leader in ratings and influence on his team, the boss of one of the eight best soccer teams on the planet.

Jhon Arias is the soul and nerve of a team like Fluminense , which gave a masterclass against the Champions League runner-up, Inter Milan, and which has proven throughout the competition that, with freedom in the front line, the role of leader is not too big for him.

Seeing him with that commanding talent he displayed in the speech for Fluminense's penultimate match was moving; hearing the international press heap praise on his sacrifice and understanding of the game was shocking; seeing his record and his heat map in full footballer mode in that match against the Italians was stunning.

And it's disheartening to see how his country disregards the kind of attacker it desperately needs, out of a fit of paternalism, a frank disregard for the effort to be there, even if they send him to the goal - he'll do whatever it takes to be there - a flagrant injustice.

Arias has excelled in each of the Colombian National Team's five winless matches and was invariably the first substitution, decided by Néstor Lorenzo.

Being one of his team's key figures, he was benched in a crucial match against Argentina, which fortunately ended 1-1, but which could have been won if he hadn't instilled in us once again the blessed habit of giving away late goals and having no answers from the bench to correct them. These may be player errors, but the person responsible, like it or not, is named Lorenzo.

No one can say a single bad word about Arias, because he doesn't perform miracles due to a lack of time. But if the decision is to sacrifice his talent and keep him away from the opponent's penalty area to guarantee a bodyguard for a slow player, not in his best form, like James Rodríguez, the result is what we all see: an offensive anemia that dragged on against Paraguay and Peru, opponents against whom a decisive blow had to be made, and an unrealistic, anachronistic, and profoundly inefficient pace of play that is entirely Lorenzo's fault and that has us where we are today: in limbo.

We can afford to turn our backs on a man like Arias who is dying to be here. We can restrict the freedom Fluminense guarantees him in a clear slap in the face to what Colombia is doing to him. We can deny him, time and again, the right he's earned to be as much of a leader as all those who a year ago—because of the Copa América final—were untouchable. But we can't complain later, when he tires of waiting and, like others, refuses to answer the phone during a call-up. The coach is also responsible for that. Our fate, for better or worse, bears his signature.