Óscar Perea and Néstor Lorenzo's Squad List: Colombia's Friendly Laboratory

At the 88th minute of a late-night match, when the stands had already emptied, Óscar Perea received the ball on the left flank. He took one touch, cut inside, and shot with his right foot. The ball drifted wide of the post. No goal, no roar. But that was the moment I noted in my notebook, the fourth such moment across four matches I had watched him play.

Four days later, Perea's name appeared on the Colombia national team squad list under coach Néstor Lorenzo.

162 minutes. Two goals. Four matches, two starts. That is the entire body of numerical evidence a national team head coach holds before calling up a young player. On paper, it looks thin. But between two whistles, there is a world the scoreboard cannot measure.

I have stayed behind after many matches like that one. Based on my own experience watching matches across many seasons, I have learned one thing: call-ups rarely begin with a beautiful goal. They begin with a run, a well-timed press, a moment nobody in the stands remembers by name. And sometimes, they begin with a silence.

To understand why a name like Perea appears on Colombia's list right now, it must be placed inside its proper time frame: a series of friendlies during the September and October FIFA windows, when results matter less than what the coaching staff can see.

Context: when friendlies are not about winning

Let me be clear from the outset: this is a squad list, not a post-match tactical report. It belongs to the phase national team coaches call the "experimental window" — a short stretch, usually just a few days of training camp, where the top priority is not three points but information.

Néstor Lorenzo took charge of Colombia with a dual mandate: maintain the framework built during qualifying, while widening the player pool ahead of the next competitive cycle, pointing toward the 2026 World Cup. Those two goals sometimes conflict. When you keep a framework intact, you get stability but you do not know how deep your reserves run. When you call up a wave of new faces, you get data but you lose cohesion.

In this FIFA window, Lorenzo leaned toward the second option. His list contains at least ten first-time or near-first-time call-ups, along with a group of players based in Liga MX — a league often underrated by Colombia fans who follow European football, yet one that national team coaches watch closely because of its pace and internal competition.

A friendly inside such a window has a characteristic few notice: it is short. Players assemble, learn the training plan, play one or two matches, then disperse. There is not enough time to install a tactical system. So what the staff actually harvests is not a style of play, but answers to small questions: can this player handle the intensity of a national team session, how does he react when placed beside a higher-caliber teammate, and most importantly, does he keep a cool head in an unfamiliar environment.

That is why I do not read this list as a manifesto about Colombia's future. I read it as a working note: these are the names the staff wants to see with their own eyes, before deciding whether to fold them into the long-term plan.

The core: 162 minutes and the limits of a small sample

Back to Perea. The player currently at América, previously linked with Águilas, has a match record so short it barely qualifies as a record. Four matches, two of them starts, 162 minutes in total, two goals.

Converted, that is roughly 1.11 goals per 90 minutes, and about 40.5 minutes per appearance. Purely as a number, this is a very high scoring rate. But it must be said plainly: such a small sample cannot prove anything with certainty. Two goals in 162 minutes could signal a natural finisher, or it could be a lucky stretch any forward experiences at some point.

What interests me more is the structure of those 162 minutes. Four matches with two starts means Perea has never been handed a settled starting berth. He entered at different moments, faced different opponents, and scored without a continuous run of games to prove consistency. In football, consistency is more expensive than talent. Talent gives you a moment. Consistency gives you a career.

And here is the point I want to stress: a goal in a small sample is not evidence of class, but evidence of potential. Colombia's staff did not call Perea because he had proven something. They called him because they want to test whether that potential can translate at a higher level. That is the difference between a contract and a trial.

There is another issue the original analysis raised, and I fully agree: we do not know what position Perea plays in Colombia's system. He was called up as a forward, but that word is far too broad. Winger, second striker, or central striker? Each role demands a different skill set and a different comparison with positional peers. Without role information, any comparison between Perea and Jhon Arias, Yaser Asprilla, Luis Javier Suárez, or Jáminton Campaz is speculation.

This is where the story becomes more interesting from a professional standpoint. Over many years in this trade, I have fallen into the trap of reading a name without reading the context. Fixing a misspelled name takes 47 days; keeping a person's trust takes forever. I have learned that before writing about a player, I must understand where he plays, in what system, and what is expected of him. With Perea, we have none of those three. We have only 162 minutes and a name.

The newcomers: ten names and a question of depth

Beyond Perea, Lorenzo's list includes a wave of new faces: Kevin Andrade, Royer Caicedo, Edier Ocampo, Samuel Velásquez, Matías Orozco, Juan Manuel Rengifo, Daniel Arcila, Kevin Viveros, Jhon Solís, and Camilo Durán. Together, that is a huge volume of experimentation for a friendly window lasting only a few days.

What stands out is how these positions are distributed. There are full-backs, central midfielders, attacking players. In other words, Lorenzo is not hunting for one specific role. He is auditing the entire depth of a generation.

In my trade, people often talk about a national team's depth in a very abstract way: "we have many options." But real depth is not measured by the number of names on a list. It is measured by how many players can step into a competitive match without collapsing the system. And to know that, you have to let them play. You have to let them make mistakes in a friendly, where the cost of error is far lower than in a qualifier.

Jhon Solís is a case worth pausing on. A young central midfielder handed an opportunity in an area where Colombia has a tradition of producing quality names. In his position, competition comes not only from his own age group but from an entire generation of senior players at peak form. Being called up does not mean he will start. It only means the door has creaked open.

Kevin Viveros and Camilo Durán belong to the attacking group, and together with Perea they form a cluster of young names in the front line. This is how a coach manages risk: instead of betting on one young striker, he calls several, lets them compete, and lets the pitch decide who deserves it most.

Samuel Velásquez, Edier Ocampo, Royer Caicedo, Matías Orozco, Juan Manuel Rengifo, Daniel Arcila, Kevin Andrade — these names form the rest of the picture. What an outside observer struggles to see is that each call-up carries its own question. Sometimes the question is technical. Sometimes it is simply about attitude: how does this player react when he sits on the bench in a big match?

The emptiest stadium still breathes; you just have to listen with your heart. In this context, that empty stadium is the substitutes' bench. There, a young player's true nature shows most clearly.

The Liga MX group: an underrated piece

Another notable point of this list is the presence of a group of players based in Liga MX, with representatives from América, Águilas, León, Cruz Azul, and Pumas. For Colombia fans who follow European football, this can be a puzzling detail. But for people in my trade, national team coaches keeping an eye on Liga MX is entirely logical.

Liga MX is a high-tempo league with a dense fixture list and heavy performance pressure at every club. Players there must learn to play twice a week, travel constantly, and live under the pressure of changing coaches, teammates, and systems. It is an environment that forges adaptability — a quality any national team needs.

When Lorenzo calls a group of Liga MX players, he is not just calling individuals. He is testing a hypothesis: whether Liga MX's tempo can translate to the national team level. This is a question many national team coaches across the Americas are answering, including those of Mexico and the United States.

I have seen a player perform brilliantly at club level yet fade completely for his country. I have also seen the opposite. The line between the two rarely sits in skill. It sits in mentality and in position. A player deployed in his natural role looks entirely different from one pushed out wide.

The core framework: when stability is a shield

Counterbalancing the newcomers and the Liga MX group is an established framework: Dávinson Sánchez, Daniel Muñoz, and Jhon Lucumí in defense; Kevin Castaño and Richard Ríos in midfield; Jhon Arias, Yaser Asprilla, Luis Javier Suárez, and Jáminton Campaz in attack.

The presence of this group in a friendly list is not only about securing results. It is also about creating a healthy competitive environment for the newcomers. A young player learns the most when he plays beside a senior who has already been through big matches. That is a form of knowledge transfer no training plan can replace.

Richard Ríos is an interesting case. He represents the modern midfielder: physically strong, good in the air, capable of converting defense into attack. In a friendly, where tempo is often broken by constant substitutions, a midfielder like Ríos can act as an anchor for the whole team.

Further forward, the group of Arias, Asprilla, Suárez, and Campaz offers a diverse skill set. Arias excels at breaking down the flank. Asprilla brings speed and directness. Suárez is a striker who can drop deep. Campaz brings creativity. Because there are four such options, the question about Perea becomes more complex: where does he fit into this picture?

Football never owes us a result; it only owes us a story. The story of this squad list is the story of a coach trying to find a place for the next generation inside an already crowded squad.

Kevin Mier and the goalkeeper question

Among the returning faces, Kevin Mier is the most notable in the defensive third. The story of a goalkeeper returning from injury always carries a different layer of meaning than players in other positions.

Goalkeeper is the only position where stability has near-absolute value. A defender can lose form and still start for other qualities. A goalkeeper who loses form loses his place. That is why, when a goalkeeper just back from injury is called up, the staff usually has two aims. First, to test his match readiness. Second, to assess whether he can compete for the number one spot in the future.

On the fitness side, this is a risk I always watch. A goalkeeper returning from injury needs very careful load management. Being called into camp is a positive signal, but it also places him on a denser schedule than usual, between club and country. I have seen goalkeepers re-injure themselves at exactly this stage.

The contrarian angle: this is not a generational overhaul

Now to the part I want to spend the most time on, because this is where misunderstandings form.

The most common reading of a list with many new names is this: the national team is undergoing a generational overhaul. It is an appealing reading, but a flawed one. An overhaul is a deliberate process, spanning years, in which one generation is pushed up to replace the previous one. What is happening with Colombia this time is far simpler: it is an audit of the player pool, a kind of inventory of assets.

The difference between the two lies here: in an overhaul, young players are handed starting berths and allowed to make mistakes in important matches. In an audit, young players are given chances in friendlies and judged strictly. If you misread the nature of this phase, you will expect too much and be disappointed too quickly.

Another misreading is to assume these call-ups reflect a change in philosophy. I do not think so. Lorenzo is a pragmatic coach. He does not pursue a fixed system idea to the point of trading away results. In a short friendly window, what he needs most is data about people, not about systems.

And here is the key point I want to stress: the real value of this squad list lies in the questions it creates, not the answers it delivers. People often want a list to say something definitive. But in a friendly phase, the best list is one that raises the most questions.

There is a data blind spot I must state clearly. Everything above rests on basic match information: matches, minutes, goals, starts. We do not have expected goals, expected assists, pressing metrics, or possession shares. Those metrics are what allow us to distinguish a lucky striker from a capable one. Without them, any comparison between Perea and his positional peers remains speculative.

And this is what I always remind myself when writing about a young player: I do not keep the rhythm for the team, I keep the rhythm for those who kept the rhythm for the team. With Perea, those who kept his rhythm are the club coaches who gave him 162 minutes to prove himself. If they gave him 162 minutes, I have a duty not to judge him on those 162 minutes alone.

There is one more factor many overlook: timeliness. A squad list for a friendly window has a very short shelf life. Once the FIFA window closes, its reference value drops fast. The names on it will be remembered if they make an impression, and forgotten if they only appeared for a few halves. That is the law of the trade.

A fitness risk

Among the technical factors of a friendly, there is one viewers rarely notice: physical condition. Called-up players come from different leagues, with different workloads, and at different stages of freshness in their season.

For a player mid-season in Liga MX, traveling thousands of kilometers to join camp for a few days and then returning immediately to his club is genuine pressure. For a young player still fighting for a place, that pressure is even greater, because he will not dare say he is tired.

This is a type of risk staff must weigh between gathering data and protecting players. It is also why I often have sympathy for coaches who use at least one friendly to rotate thoroughly.

What to watch next

So what is the next internal signal we should track?

First, the actual minutes Perea receives in the friendlies. If he starts, that is a clear signal about his place in the medium-term plan. If he only enters for the final 20 minutes, the story stays open.

Second, who among the newcomers keeps a place on the next list. A name returning on the following call-up matters more than a first appearance.

Third, Kevin Mier's condition. If he is handed a full match, it shows the staff deems him ready enough to enter a real competition for the goalkeeper spot.

And finally, watch the Liga MX group. How they perform in national colors will partly answer whether their league is a springboard or a barrier.

I will still be here, on those evenings sitting alone after the stands have emptied, noting the moments nobody else notes. Because for me, this job is not about counting goals. It is about listening to a team's breathing before that breathing becomes a number on a scoreboard.