Jorman Campuzano Atlético Nacional vs Deportivo Pereira, Digi Mart USA News (Colombia): Some matches are played with the feet, but also with memory and the heart. For Jorman Campuzano, the clashes between Atlético Nacional and Deportivo Pereira carry a special meaning.
They are a return to the beginning of a story that was far from simple.
Saturday’s match, starting at 6:10 p.m. at the Atanasio Girardot stadium and broadcast by Win Sports+, will be no exception.
Pereira was the team that opened the doors of professional football to him in 2015. There, the dream of a young man who had arrived in Bogotá as a teenager, carrying a suitcase full of hopes and the hope of finding an opportunity in football, began to take shape.
The Colombian capital did not welcome him with open arms. In his search for opportunities, he faced closed doors, informal jobs and nights on the street.
There were moments when the dream of becoming a professional footballer seemed far away. Still, he found people who extended a hand when he needed it most.
Some of them were Millonarios fans, a detail with its own irony, since over the years he would wear the shirt of the historic rival of the Embajadores.
Those gestures of solidarity left a mark on his life. Campuzano never forgot those who helped him when nothing was certain, when football was still a dream he had to pursue day after day.
In Pereira he found his first major opportunity. His time with the Matecaña club was the springboard he needed to make the jump to Nacional, where he had an important showcase and began to establish himself as a first-class footballer.
In 2019 he joined Boca Juniors, where he stayed for five years, with a brief interlude in Turkish football. Argentina allowed him to experience the scale of a giant club, compete in major tournaments and live through experiences that enriched his career.
However, it was also the setting for the most painful personal tragedy he has had to face: the death of his son. The blow was so profound that he questioned whether he would continue in football.
“I didn’t want to play football anymore,” he said when recalling that episode. That statement conveys the suffering he endured and also helps explain the strength with which he has rebuilt his life.
Campuzano had to recover not only as an athlete, but also to find reasons to keep going as a person. Time, the support of his loved ones and his love for football allowed him to return to the pitch and continue a career that still had much to offer.
His return to Nacional in 2024, initially on loan and later permanently after negotiations with Boca Juniors, meant reuniting with an institution he already knew and where he had left a good impression. Today he is one of those players who do not need big spotlights to become indispensable.
On the pitch he represents balance, order and recovery. He is often the man who does the work that does not appear in the statistics, allowing others the freedom to create and sustaining the team’s collective functioning.
He has also become an important voice in the dressing room, a footballer who knows life’s difficulties, who has had to get up after falling and who understands the value of opportunities. Campuzano will face Pereira again, the team that gave him his first chance in professional football, in a match that carries special significance in his career.
The midfielder represents a story of struggle and perseverance, having faced economic hardship and moments when he even slept on the street before finding his way in football.
Now, as a leader of Nacional, he will seek a victory that would allow the Green team to remain at the top of the table, move closer to the invisible point and continue the race to reach the record of 104 points in a single year. Pereira, for its part, arrives with the calm of having avoided relegation, but will try to complicate the path for the Antioquia side and repeat the 1-0 win it secured in the last meeting between the two, on April 25, with a goal by Jordy Monroy.
