Walter de la Torre

La Plata

Not even the 4-1 solid finish against Venezuela makes him lose his usual prudence. He looks exhausted, but he rewards our vigil with a small chat in the lobby of the hotel. We tell him that Lima is celebrating, that on the social media the Peruvians want him as presudent, and for a moment he is pushed to dream with the question: "Can you imagine how Peru will celebrate the qualification to the 2014 World Cup?"

"I cannot imagine what will happen when we classify to the World Cup. Thanks to the people for their support to this group of players. Thanks to Peru for the opportunity it has given me. And thank God because we are in good health and we can share moments like this with everyone. But there is still a lot ahead. We have to take things with calm," commented the coach.

"We have not won anything, we are still the ones that finished last in the qualifiers. I have said it repeatedly, this was good, but we want more, we have the hunger to give Peruvian football a better place. I insist on this: the true triumph is not that this team win something, but that we get the structural reforms that football needs, and we change the profile of Peruvian football," he continued.

"The change has to be made today. This third place in the Copa gives us the leadership to make the changes that have to be made. Let the people celebrate, I think that is great, but tomorrow we have to face the obligations we face every day, we have to keep working. We hope this continues, that we can have great qualifiers, and that we go to the World Cup in Brazil. We have begun well, but the path is long," added Markarian in his insistence that the celebration be put in context.

"We have finished a year of work and the fans know what we have done, that we begin at zero. Today we begin to have a roster, the team will be complemented when the creatures we are missing are ready.It is a good start, but truly, I think we have done nothing yet."

The last question was for Paolo Guerrero, the top scorer of the Copa America. Is he the best player of the Copa America? "In a cup in which there have been a lot of stars, I think Paolo did very well, he stood out and his five goals put him in a great position to be the best player of the tournament."