Going From Bad To Worse In South America

Starting off with “Ooh…ahh…death threats in Colombia!” probably won’t read any different than any other news story about South American football which hits the news feeds. Sadly, it’s par for the course these days. Argentina is running away with pole position and Brazil has been breeding future generations on the pitch, while Uruguay is still climbing back after having last season shut down due to riots.

But this is Colombia, where death threats are, well, death threats. Thus they’re taken quite seriously. So seriously that Ruben Israel, Santa Fe’s new Uruguayan coach, resigned before commanding a single minute from the sidelines.

Santa Fe has something of a history – a fairly good history – with six Colombian titles in its cabinet, yet none in the last 34 years. This, as you may suspect, would perturb some fans. So when Santa Fe failed to qualify for the group stage of the season’s first Mustang (Think of Colombia as having an Apertura & Clausura, but called Mustang I & II, with a group stage/knock out championship playoffs at the end of both I & II. Yes, entirely unnecessary.), they sacked their coach and brought in new blood – Israel.

Most fans coming off an incredible poor season – or half a season – would probably be thrilled for new ideas, new systems, new life. Not so for at least one Santa Fe fan of a notorious ultras group. Israel’s new…whatever…is apparently so rubbish he deserves to die.

“Yesterday he received several calls with threats on his life and those of his family, calls we can’t understand because he hasn’t even stepped onto the grass in the stadium,”

And this is what South American football has come to. Death threats against a man who wasn’t even been given the opportunity to prove or disprove his worth. Beyond ridiculous, yet I dare you to find a single person with reasonable knowledge of footballing current events who will bat an eye.

Of course it could be a really dim Santa Fe fan – well, dim regardless, but especially so in this case – and upon Googling “Ruben Israel” he found this to be the very first website…

…one could possibly see his severe issues with a “Ruben Israel”, though not necessarily the “Ruben Israel”.

So whether by violence reform or a serious influx of fact-checkers, South American football and its fans are in serious need of an overhaul.

	Soccer Forums	Team/International Results

Category: South America, World Football

Tags: Argentina, brazil, Colombia, Ruben Israel, Santa Fe, South America, Uruguay, World Football

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