Hugo Rodallega, completely against José Pékerman after being removed from the Colombian National Team: he said that they called up players for business reasons.

Hugo Rodallega, top scorer and 2025-I BetPlay League champion, is experiencing a second youth, very close to turning 40. However, he has a thorn in his side: not having been able to play in a senior World Cup with the Colombian national team.

Rodallega was a regular call-up to the national team between 2005 and 2011. He played 43 matches and scored eight goals. However, José Pékerman's arrival at the national team meant he was forced to leave the national team. Despite playing in Europe throughout the Argentine's time, he was never called up.

Rodallega, in an interview with Ricardo 'Gato' Arce, made a claim, without mentioning Pékerman: that at that time, between 2012 and 2018, there were players called up to the Colombian National Team for business reasons.

"Obviously, I'm not going to name names, but yes. I'm a footballer, I've been in this business for many years, I've had many contacts, many friends, and you learn absolutely everything. The selection of players to represent a country should be the most appropriate, not a matter of business," declared the star of Santa Fe's tenth star.

Both he and Dayro Moreno, who were part of the national team during the eras of Reinaldo Rueda, Jorge Luis Pinto, Eduardo Lara, Hernán Darío Gómez, and Leonel Álvarez, were omitted by Pékerman, although the all-time leading scorer in Colombian football returned for the 2016 Copa América Centenario.

When asked if there was any injustice towards them, Rodallega replied: "I don't know what Dayro thinks, but I'd say yes. They take those who are at their best to the national team. If that's why, yes: where I was, I scored a lot of goals. In 2015, my first year in Turkey, Dayro was in Tijuana—we're talking about the entire year—he was the top Colombian scorer worldwide, counting all the leagues, and Hugo Rodallega, yours truly, was the top Colombian scorer in Europe. I said, this is the time. I don't know what this guy doesn't like, not my skin color, my braids, but nothing. There were times when they would block 40 or 50 players and I wasn't even there," he explained.

Rodallega insisted that the way players were chosen for the national team was unusual: "I look at the roster and there was something different. That's how things are today; it's part of the business. There were players who were brought to the national team only to be sold," he noted.

Rodallega doesn't hide his frustration at missing out on the World Cup. "That thorn will always be there, because I was a player who went through many years with the national team. I played in two Copa Américas, and when I had to put on the gloves, I did too. Maybe the number of goals wasn't the most brutal, but I was always there," he said.

When he talks about putting on the gloves, he was literal: on the final matchday of the 2007 Copa América group stage, against the United States, Rodallega ended up in goal after Róbinson Zapata was sent off.

"I haven't been to a World Cup, and it's nothing against my colleagues who were able to go, but today I look at the list of the two World Cups, and there are 7, 8, 10, 12 players who don't come to me with the story that they were at a better level than me. There was something different there," he emphasized.

"It's not about the level, it's just a lie. There are players who experienced the World Cups, but their careers ended a long time ago," he added.