RIO DE JANEIRO — His name is James, but he pronounces it Hahm-ez, and that was the way the Colombian fans shouted it on Saturday night. They have been singing James Rodríguez’s praises all along, in fact, but in the flurry of goals and teams and story lines in this World Cup, there was a chance a few people had not yet noticed Rodríguez. Everyone knows him now.
Rodríguez scored two more goals — giving him five at this World Cup — in a 2-0 victory over Uruguay that sent Colombia to the quarterfinals for the first time. Things become tougher now, to be sure, with a matchup against host Brazil on Friday in Fortaleza. But with Rodríguez having scored in each of Colombia’s games, and with Brazil struggling past Chile on penalty kicks earlier Saturday, anything seems possible.
“We’re very happy because we’re making history,” Rodríguez said. “We want to do even more.”
Rodríguez scored with his left foot in the first half and with his right in the second, showing the talent that prompted A.S. Monaco to pay $61 million to acquire him last summer. A boyish-looking midfielder, Rodríguez will turn 23 the day before the World Cup final. If he can guide his team past Brazil, and if Colombia can extend an unbeaten streak that reached 11 games Saturday, he just might be playing that weekend.
His performance Saturday night drew the highest praise. His coach, José Pékerman, shepherded Lionel Messi on Argentina’s national team and coached him in the 2006 World Cup. And he may yet face Messi here, if he can get past another global star, Brazil’s Neymar, later this week. But Pékerman said, “I never had any doubt that this was going to be James Rodríguez’s World Cup.”
Uruguay Coach Óscar Tabárez also invoked Messi’s name when asked to rate Rodríguez’s performance.
“Maradona, Messi, Suárez, James Rodríguez — they do things because they have certain gifts that make them special,” Tabárez said, invoking the names of the Argentine superstar Diego Maradona and Uruguay’s own Luis Suárez. “For me, he’s the best player in the World Cup.”
One hundred forty goals have been scored in this World Cup, but Rodríguez’s first on Saturday has to rank among the best. Presented with a floating ball at the top of the penalty area off a headed pass from Abel Aguilar, Rodríguez coolly brought the ball out of the air with his chest. Eyeing it from inches away as it dropped, he caught it with his left foot just before it hit the ground and scorched it in off the crossbar.
Goalkeeper Fernando Muslera dived gamely at the ball, but he and the two Uruguay defenders in position to stop Rodríguez, Álvaro Pereira and Diego Godín, seemed as shocked as anyone at what Rodríguez had just done. Their shoulders dropped as they watched the ball land in the goal.
Rodríguez, the Colombians raced to the corner flag for a hip-shaking celebration dance that has become their trademark here. They have had plenty of practice: Colombia is the highest-scoring team in the tournament, with 11 goals — three against Greece, two against Ivory Coast and four against Japan, along with the two it added Saturday.
Rodríguez’s second goal was nearly as pretty as the first. Laying the ball off on the right side, he tracked toward the goal as it cycled to defender Pablo Armero on the left. Armero’s cross sailed high over Rodríguez’s head to Juan Guillermo Cuadrado beyond the far post, but Cuadrado nodded it back into the middle and Rodríguez casually turned it into the open net.
The Colombian-heavy crowd roared with delight and saluted Rodríguez as he and his teammates did another dance in the corner. The small pockets of fans wearing Uruguay’s sky blue fell silent, drowned out by the sea of fans in yellow Colombian shirts who serenaded them with choruses of “Eliminado.”
Uruguay, furious at a suspension that sent its star forward, Suárez, home from Brazil, took the field like a clenched fist. Pereira got a talking-to from the referee after committing two hard fouls in the first 90 seconds. In the fourth minute, he delivered a third, clipping a Colombian player from behind to stop an attack.
Diego Forlán — who started up front in place of the absent Suárez — delivered a hard shoulder to Mario Yepes off the ball in the 38th minute. And after a particularly swift kick dropped Armero in front of the Uruguay bench in the 78th, defender Diego Lugano raced off it to shout at him, earning Lugano a yellow card even though he never entered the game.
The Uruguay players appeared to be following the lead of Tabárez, who angrily denounced the Suárez ban in a 15-minute speech to reporters on Friday. Tabárez did not deny that losing Suárez had hurt — “Suárez is an important player; I don’t think I have to say it,” he said — so the team tried to use his absence as motivation. Uruguay set up a locker for Suárez in its dressing room at Estádio do Maracanã, and players like striker Edinson Cavani posted photos on Twitter of themselves posing with his No. 9. But without Suárez, they were off their game.
Outrage goes only so far; in this World Cup, the Round of 16 was the end of the line.
See James Rodríguez Goal ... https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/227A59DE8C1094768463588773888_22c7e0fa2a4.0.4.18407701546988100069.mp4?versionId=x.2DIg3FmbtNjJseWH_Nnd1Fy_obK6m5
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