“Davinson Sanchez had been there in 2018. So had Johan Mojica and Jefferson Lerma. James Rodriguez? He’d been there in 2018 and 2014 — the same as Santiago Arias, David Ospina, Juan Fernando Quintero, Camilo Vargas. They had been absent eight years — eight painful years — but Colombia’s squad was positively dripping with World Cup history. They carried stories with them, especially the class of 2014: thrashing Japan in the grasslands of Cuiaba; Rodriguez’s volley against Uruguay at the Maracana; quarter-final heartache against hosts Brazil. All of it, the wistfulness and the war stories, the nostalgia and the nagging aches, came with them to Mexico for their Group K opener against Uzbekistan. …”
NYT/ATH