This Tuesday night (4) the group stage of the Libertadores and the Copa Sudamericana began. And the first Brazilian to debut was exactly in Libertadores. Alianza Lima x Athletico played at the beginning of the night and tied without goals.
Coach Paulo Turra’s team played better, especially in the first half. Could have turned the game to advantage but missed some goals made. The second half started more evenly, but fell apart in the 31st minute with the expulsion of defender and captain Thiago Heleno.
After that, Athletico suffered pressure from Alianza, which is coached by Guillermo Salas and has Cueva on the team — the same one who spent time in São Paulo and then went to the beach in Santos, because playing, he didn’t play.
Another player known to Brazilians is Barcos, who played and fell with Palmeiras for the Brazilian Series B and won the Copa do Brasil in the same year, 2012. He also played for Cruzeiro, with whom he won the 2018 Copa do Brasil, and for Grêmio, where he became the club’s top foreign scorer, with 45 goals.
The draw was a good deal for the team from Paraná, as the first round is always difficult and not losing playing away from home is not a bad deal. Especially because this group still has Atlético-MG and Libertad, who play on Thursday (6), at Mineirão.
I took a break for dinner and then went to Santos’ debut in the Copa Sudamericana, against the Bolivian team Blooming, in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Without altitude, the first half was a lot of rush, intensity and strong tackles, with very little technique.
To collaborate, the referee let the game roll even with foul plays, and the game became a little aggressive between the players.
In fact, right now, there are two limited teams. But Santos has more creative players, like Lucas Lima in the middle, Felipe Jonatan on the wing (also trying to create plays in the middle) and the great striker Marcos Leonardo, without threatening too much.
The first half ended in a 0-0 draw, deservedly so, for which the teams did not present. But Fish ended up a little better.
I thought the game improved in the second half, especially after Bolivian goalkeeper Uraezaña was sent off.
Speaking of that move, for me, the VAR was right to call the referee to expel the Blooming goalkeeper. In my opinion, he hit Marcos Leonardo in the middle, and the question is: if he was a defender, wouldn’t he be expelled? I think so. But the arbitration took 10 minutes to resolve this move, because the referee was very confused.
Santos, with one more player, went for it and started to be more aggressive, especially after Ângelo entered the game. Putting on a strong intensity, he ended up creating two clear scoring chances with goalkeeper Gutiérrez, who had just entered, making great saves, the most difficult being a headbutt, face to face, to the floor of shirt number 9 from Santos, which forced the goalkeeper to defend with the feet.
But it also gave room for a chance for Blooming in front of the great goalkeeper João Paulo, who made a great save saving Santos at that moment.
In the 12 minutes that the referee added, it turned into an attack against defense, with Santos pushing Blooming back.
And, in a corner, defender Eduardo Bauermann went up a lot and hit a spectacular header, scoring the winning goal for the team from Santos. A great goal, because Santos, despite playing better, couldn’t clean up the move to finish. But, with the limitations of the Bolivian team, the defender made a corner kick, thus giving the chance of the cross for a super important goal, because it would be terrible to leave with only a draw in that match.
Santos is running after reinforcements at Água Santa because they really need to strengthen this squad to face what lies ahead. Now he will play three tournaments at once, but clearly the most worrying is the Brazilian Championship, which is very treacherous. And the Vila team has been hovering around the relegation zone in the last two editions.
Well, the results of the Brazilians this Tuesday were reasonable, because we had three draws and one victory. In Libertadores, Alianza Lima 0 x 0 Athletico and Independiente Medellín 1 x 1 Internacional — two great draws, especially the one with Colorado there in Colombia.
For the South American, we had a draw and a victory. Goiás 0 x 0 Santa Fé — which, for me, was a very bad result, because Goiás played at home. Blooming 0 x 1 Santos was a very important victory away from home in this first round.
This Wednesday (5) we will have the premieres of three more Brazilians. In Aucas x Flamengo, the Gávea team is the super favorite against this newcomer.
Sporting Cristal x Fluminense: being in Lima it will be a complicated game, mainly because at the end of the week they need to reverse a 0-2 result for Flamengo to think about the Carioca title.
In Bolívar x Palmeiras, Abel Ferreira took his reserve team to the altitude of La Paz because he also needs to reverse the defeat to Água Santa to be twice champion of São Paulo.
See you tomorrow!
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