The national coach spoke about midfielder Alex Roldan’s decision not to attend the June call with El Salvador, to play the CONCACAF Nations League.
Hugo Pérez, national coach of El Salvador, confirmed that Alex Roldan’s decision not to attend calls with Selecta is “personal” due to the incident that occurred on February 2, but at the same time is temporary, stressing that he “needs more time to absorb” what happened in the period that It preceded that match with Canada.
Hours before receiving the North American team at the Concacaf Octagonal, they were about to miss this meeting due to disagreements with the Executive Committee of the Salvadoran Football Association (Fesfut). Then, the possibility arose that some players, including some who play abroad, had given up participation with the national team because of the problem.
“We’ve been in contact with Roldan. And Gerson (Perez), our assistant, spoke to him personally and two days ago he told us he wanted more time to absorb what happened… He made a personal decision,” the coach of Roldan’s case explained.
However, Perez emphasized that there was “no room for lamenting or complaining” about the absence of a national team captain for the upcoming matches of the League of Nations: “It is clear that he is important to the team, but if he is not, then he is not here and we will not have further discussions. The decision he made is respectable. We have to move on.”
On the other hand, Perez celebrated the founding of goalkeeper Thomas Romero, who has finally decided to represent El Salvador internationally and will have the opportunity for the first time in an official match with the team in the CONCACAF Nations League.
With this, the coach is still not sure if there will be a rotation on the national goal or if he will stay with a fixed one for the next three matches. “This week we will decide. Mario (Gonzalez) was our starting goalkeeper, he got it through work, but football is also about competition and always staying ahead. The most important thing in the national team is the competitiveness of the players because that makes us all better”, anticipation.
Finally, Hugo Pérez reiterated that El Salvador’s task in the upcoming tournament is to “qualify for the Gold Cup”, as he considers it an important scenario “to have the possibility of promotion and to be seen (their players) internationally”.
Regarding the home game against the United States, on June 14, he expects an “equally competitive team” like the one who visited them on September 2 in the Qatar 2022 qualifying round. “They are already in the World Cup and FIFA history. It is important, because they only have this window and a window September, which is why they need to bring all their players.”
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