If there was one player Peru really didn’t want to be without for their World Cup playoff against New Zealand this week it was Paolo Guerrero.
The 33-year-old striker was not only Peru’s joint top scorer in qualification but is also a talismanic figure around which their entire attacking game-plan is based. His strength in battling with defenders and holding the ball under pressure regularly helps bring the trio of quick-footed attacking midfielders behind him into play.
Guerrero is also Peru’s captain, and his leadership and warrior spirit were key to them reaching the final four at both the 2011 and 2015 Copa Americas. He is pretty much irreplaceable - at least on a like-for-like basis.
The news that emerged last week that he would miss both legs of the playoff (in New Zealand on Friday and back in Lima next Wednesday) after failing a drugs test after Peru’s draw away to Argentina last month was therefore received with a great deal of distress within the Peruvian camp. The federation’s sporting director Juan Carlos Oblitas described it as “the worst news we could have received.”
Guerrero has pleaded his innocence. He was suffering from a mild flu that day and drank a number of cups of tea in a bid to improve his condition in the build-up to the match. The hypothesis put forward by his legal defence is that his positive test for Benzoylecgonine was due not to directly ingesting cocaine, of which it is the main metabolite, or coca leaf tea but a result of some form of contamination of the latter product with the tea that he consumed.
Despite the difficulty of proving that theory, they appear fairly confident that Guerrero will avoid a long-term sanction. But even if that is the case, there is nothing that can be done about his ban for the playoff - a tie that provides Peru with a chance to qualify for their first World Cup since 1982.
It, therefore, falls on coach Ricardo Gareca to find a solution for the absence of one of his main men. The Argentinian is a coach who always tries to maintain an optimistic outlook and there has been little sign of undue concern. He has simply got on with the task at hand.
The two players who have emerged as Guerrero’s most likely replacement are Jefferson Farfan and Raul Ruidiaz.
Neither fits Guerrero’s profile. Farfan is physically strong enough to act as a back-to-goal reference point but isn’t as good in the air and is not a natural centre-forward. Training ground work suggests that he would be tasked with running the channels and seeking opportunities to get himself one-on-one against defenders - work that the small and impish Ruidiaz would also be capable of.
Without Guerrero, Peru will be forced to lean on the strength of collective to see them through. That sense of group responsibility and belonging is something that Gareca has strived hard to forge. In doing so, he has created a team who believe themselves capable of competing with the best despite the fact that the majority still ply their trade in the Americas.
In the absence of their warrior leader that group will now have to step up and prove that with or without him, they are worthy of a place at next year’s World Cup.
