What Colombia should take care of when facing New Zealand and Australia

The Colombia National Team ends its 2025 with two friendly matches that serve as preparation for the 2026 World Cup, the Tricolor will face New Zealand and Australia, two unusual rivals in its history of confrontations.

Facing precisely two teams from the other side of the hemisphere helps Néstor Lorenzo’s Colombia to try different variants than usual and face challenges different from those generally proposed by its rivals in the Qualifiers or Copa América.

What should be taken care of Colombia vs. New Zealand and Australia?

New Zealand under the command of Englishman Darren Shaun Bazeley It is a reactive team that usually plays with a short team between the lines, with defensive order, very physical and that bets on quick transitions to go on the counterattack, generally giving up possession of the ball and He has very active men in the middle looking to steal the ball and cut off the game like Marko Stamenicwho plays with Swansea in the English Championship. However, fortunately for Colombia, this Oceania team will not have players like Liberato Cacace, Callum McCowatt, Alex Paulsen, Ryan Thomas, Tim Payne and captain Chris Wood for this match. Against the Colombians they will surely propose this type of game and will seek to take advantage of any set-piece action they have, since they have several players who are over 1.90 m tall.

Australia, more accustomed to playing the World Cup, means a higher level of demand For Colombia, in fact the last time they faced each other the game ended in a goalless tie and we are talking about 2018 when the Tricolor had achieved a pleasant image with José Pékerman, James, Falcao and company. The game of the Australians is not far from what New Zealand proposes, but unlike those led by Tony Popovic, they do not like to protect themselves so much in their own field and they do go out to apply high pressure seeking to generate an error in the rival. Their transitions are very dangerous especially because of Nestory Irankunda’s attacking speed.a player for Watford in England, direct play is one of his strengths.