José Néstor Pékerman Krimen (Spanish pronunciation: [xoˈse ˈpekerman]; born 3 September 1949) is an Argentine-Colombian professional football coach.

Marcelo Bielsa was hired as coach on Pékerman's recommendation, and remained in charge until after Argentina's gold medal performance in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

In 2003, Pékerman moved to Spain at the behest of Argentine businessman Daniel Grinbank, who had acquired Spanish Second Division side CD Leganés.

Pékerman made defensive substitutions, including taking off Juan Román Riquelme for Esteban Cambiasso, and also not giving Lionel Messi an opportunity to play the match.

On 23 February 2009, Pékerman was appointed as the head coach of UANL Tigres after the sacking of Manuel Lapuente following a series of bad results.

Pékerman was the third coach of the Colombia team during the South American World Cup qualifiers; before Álvarez, Hernán Darío Gómez was at the helm.

In his home debut, Pékerman orchestrated an astonishing comeback as Colombia demolished 2011 Copa América champions Uruguay 4–0 in the seventh round of World Cup qualifiers.

A few days later, Pékerman experimented without many star players such as Radamel Falcao and James Rodríguez against Cameroon, resulting in a comfortable 3–0 home victory.

In the opening match of 2013, Pékerman experimented yet again, this time against the Guatemala side; he used only substitutes in a 4–1 victory, opting not to deploy senior stars, including Radamel Falcao.

During the next round of qualifiers, Pékerman continued with the promising 4–2–2–2 formation that facilitated Colombia's comfortable defeat of Bolivia in a 5–0 home victory.

In the match against his home nation Argentina, Pékerman changed the lineup and formation to better "deal" with the South American giants, which led to a hard-fought 0–0 draw.

[5] Colombia won all three of its group matches (scoring nine goals and conceding only two) and went on to defeat Uruguay in the Round of 16 before losing to the host nation of Brazil in the quarter-finals.

Colombia suffered a controversial defeat in their first group stage game against a well-organized and determined Japan, but then came out much stronger to inflict a 3–0 victory over Poland (effectively knocking them out of the tournament in the process).

Before the 2006 World Cup began, Pékerman made the controversial decision to drop established defenders Javier Zanetti and Walter Samuel.

[citation needed] His team lost its temper after the elimination and instigated a huge brawl, which was believed to be a major factor in his resignation.

[20] Following Colombia's qualification for the 2014 World Cup, Pekerman stated his desire to be a naturalized Colombian, which was granted by President Juan Manuel Santos the following day.