The defeat against Nacional 3-0 last Sunday at the Atanasio Girardot stadium in Medellín for date 12 of the Colombian League was the trigger for the Executive Committee of Deportivo Cali to decide to terminate the contract of coach Máyer Candelo. This Monday his departure was imminent.
On the Antioquia stage, Máyer lined up an unprecedented team in defense, putting up a line of three with Germán Mera, Adrián Palacios and José Caldera, and in front of them Yony González and Kevin Velasco as lanes, a scheme that gave him many advantages to the local, who knew how to take advantage of them and after 11 minutes they already won the game 2-0.
Candelo did not rearrange the scheme or make changes in a timely manner and Cali was able to bring in more goals against than it conceded in the end. This Monday, the members of the Executive Committee met and decided to terminate Mayer’s contract, who barely added 8 points out of a possible 36. All that remained was to make the news official.
His imminent departure comes just a week after the president of the Executive Committee, Luis Fernando Mena, ratified Candelo in office, arguing that Cali was not there to stop processes and constantly change coaches.
On the team’s bench, Ítalo Cervino, who on other occasions has assumed the duties of coach of the first team, would be commissioned as interim coach.
an ephemeral step
It also happened to Mario Yepes: the results ended up condemning him as coach of Deportivo Cali, because the fans had no patience and asked for his departure.
Yepes, former captain of the sugar team in his time as a player, took command of Cali as a coach between 2106 and 2017, and although the results were not entirely bad, there was a short circuit with the fans and that ended up taking its toll.
The same thing is happening now with Máyer Candelo, who has just been ‘unpacked’ as coach of Deportivo Cali and, like Yepes, had to leave office.
Candelo was made official as the new helmsman of the Verdiblanco team on July 9, 2022.
From the date until today, he has directed 12 games per League and the balance is not favorable: he has one win, 5 draws and 5 losses, and has the most defeated fence in the tournament (26 goals).
His debut was on July 14 in Ibagué, where he lost 2-0 to Deportes Tolima.
From there began a series of negative results that forced his departure from the team.
In addition to the results, Candelo had several problems with Teófilo Gutiérrez, the team’s captain and maximum reference, which shattered the group’s confidence and somehow divided it, a situation that was reflected in the poor collective performance.
However, the two, Máyer and ‘Teo’, embraced each other in Cali’s only victory this semester, over Pasto, when the Barranquilla native scored the second goal.
A worrying future
In addition to the results, Cali is going through a financial and administrative crisis, reflected in the 95,000 million pesos of indebtedness of the institution and the division that has existed among the members of the Executive Committee, although the directors themselves have repeatedly denied it.
The team needs resources to get out of the crisis and there is talk of a foreign firm that would be interested in injecting capital, but there is still no precision in that regard.
Likewise, it is said that several partners who are hurt by the present of the team are carrying out a campaign to gather resources that in some way alleviate the crisis of the institution.
In sports matters, the panorama is also frightening, because although Cali is not on the verge of relegation, in the 2023 season it could be exposed to some risk of continuing as it is, because the 2021 average will be erased and the 2022 average will be taken into account, year in which the sugar producers have remained at the bottom of the standings.
Currently, Cali occupies the 19th place in the League and is practically eliminated from the finals.