In South America, the world’s longest mountain range stretches 7,000 kilometres from the very bottom tip of Argentina in the south to the Caribbean coast of Venezuela in the north. When one thinks of the peculiarities the continent’s topography has thrown up in football, it is the stories of giant killings in Bolivia’s Estadio Hernando Siles, in La Paz, that first come to mind. At 3,637 metres above sea level, the hosts have a natural ally in the altitude they are acclimatised to but that plays havoc with the preparation of their visitors. It has led to results that would have otherwise been deemed freak: their 2-0 triumph over Brazil in 1993, the first time their opponents had lost a World Cup qualifier in 40 years, the 6-1 mauling of a Lionel Messi led and Diego Maradona managed Argentina side in 2009, and their sole Copa América title, which they won in 1963 and was hosted across their Estadio Hernando Siles and Estadio Félix Capriles–itself 2,558 metres above sea level. Yet, Venezuelan football has its own Andean curiosities too; far less known but no less fascinating.
As Bolivia were steamrolling their way to that Copa América trophy, unbeaten with five wins from six and the top scorers with 19, whoever you could say constituted the national team of Venezuela were sat watching at home. Like was the case for the first 27 editions of the tournament, Venezuela did not participate in this–the 28th–one, either. In fact, they were yet to kick a ball competitively at all. Their first World Cup qualifying campaign was not until 1965, with Argenis Tortolero having the honour of scoring Venezuela’s first ever competitive goal, in a 3-1 defeat to Uruguay, in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. Their first competitive victory came two years later, defeating Bolivia by three goals to nil in the fourth game of their first Copa América. Venezuela would have to wait 30 years to experience that winning feeling again in the tournament, drawing seven and losing 34 along the way.
The architect in the dugout for their second triumph, a 2-0 win against Peru, was Richard Páez. It was 2007 and Venezuela were hosting the Copa América for the first time. For six years, Páez had been reengineering the continent’s perennial whipping boys. He was so successful in doing so that the national team’s nickname changed from “The Cinderella” (La Cenicienta), because they always came last, to “The Red Wine” (La Vinotinto), thanks to the colour of their shirts. Páez’s transformational mission was a personal one. Not only was he taking great pride in being the first Venezuelan to take charge of the national team for competitive fixtures, but he had endured the pain of being part of La Cenicienta as a player.
The moment he realised he had to do something came in the 1975 Copa América. He was part of Venezuela’s heaviest defeat in history when they lost 11-0 to César Luis Menotti’s Argentina, a game in which the aptly named centre-back Daniel Killer scored a hat-trick. After the game, Páez promised himself that he would one day change the national team’s identity.