Everton player said be ‘putting a lid on the mouths’ of those who doubted him

It’s hard to express just how much coverage Yerry Mina gets in the Colombian media.

The Everton player was much liked in the country before he moved to Barcelona and there was big disappointment he wasn’t given many chances at the Catalan club.

Then came the World Cup and Mina made himself a national hero. The squad were welcomed back as if they’d won the thing and there were numerous events celebrating the players, with Mina one of the stars.

After a long transfer drama, the defender signed for Everton but was unable to play as he recovered from injury. The Colombian press kept a close eye on his progress and became impatient with the wait.

Then he played, and his Man of the Match award was huge news. There’s now almost a strut in the reporting, a clear ‘we told you so’.

Marca’s Colombia edition goes with a headline saying Mina is ‘putting a lid on the mouths’ of those who doubted him, namely Barcelona and their manager Ernesto Valverde.

It’s explained that Barca are now looking for another central defender themselves, and that Valverde’s decision to pick Thomas Vermaelen over Mina was wrong.

The Belgian defender is having a ‘fiasco’ of a season, and ‘as expected, also chains one injury after another’.