Pékerman: "Madrid know that James may require surgery"

Colombia coach José Pékerman gave his assessment of last night’s 2-1 win over Paraguay in Pasadena in which Carlos Bacca and James Rodríguez put the Tricolor ahead within the first half hour. Pékerman also spoke about James’ shoulder injury which he feels may need to remedied on the operating table.

Overview of the game: “First of all it’s very satisfying to get the result we were looking for and breeds confidence ahead of the next games. We put in a great first half; Paraguay had a great second half. We were forced to fight against a Paraguay side which improved as the game wore on and who made switches to their team; they made us feel uncomfortable and we had to readjust to counter the problems they were giving us. But you sometimes make mistakes with your decisions; Paraguay gave us a tough time, but we wanted to get another goal to kill the game off”.

James Rodríguez in the starting line-up: “Seeing as James is such an exclusive and fundamental player for us, we have to be careful. We’d never rule James out, we know that the kind of injury he has will eventually force us to make a decision. The problem is that there will always be a chance that he could suffer a relapse, and that would mean he will have to go under the knife. His club, Real Madrid, are aware of that and at some point, it will be a decision which will need to be taken".