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The technician’s image Juan Cruz Real, with the image of the Lord of Miracles in his left hand as he hugged his team and his coaching staff, summarizes everything America had to suffer to get the 15th star.
It started well, then Santa Fe He scared him with two goals in ten minutes and then had a lesson in endurance to finally celebrate a title that worked a lot, leaving several greats on the road. Outside National, outside Junior and now, defeating in the final the team that had added the most points throughout 2020.
(It may interest you: The play in which America claimed ‘fair play’ and Santa Fe celebrated).
Madness of America fans celebrating the 15th star.
It was not an easy year for America. Debts increased, in the pandemic the technician who had taken them champions a year ago left, Alexandre Guimaraes, and several of its figures, such as Michael Rangel and Matías Pisano. Real, the Brazilian’s replacement, played against everything, against the disbelief generated by his resume, against the belief that a squad full of young people was not enough to fight. He suffered the blow of defeat in the Super League, the elimination of the Copa Libertadores. Fate had a celebration in store for him in December.
Santa Fe changed everything to try to cut, step by step, the advantage that America had taken in the Pascual Guerrero eight days ago, the painful 3-0 that seemed mission impossible.
Also read: (The play in which America alleged ‘fair play’ and Santa Fe celebrated).
Madness of America fans celebrating the 15th star.
The first surprise was that DT Harold Rivera decided to play with two forwards this time, Patricio Cucchi and Diego Valdés, and bet on the experience of Venezuelan Luis Manuel Seijas, with which there were several sacrifices: Kelvin Osorio, John Velásquez and Jorge Luis Ramos they started from the substitute bench.
América, for its part, maintained the same approach as Cali, although, to cover the absence of the left back Edwin velasco, ended up putting together a defense with the idea of preventing Santa Fe from attacking him from above. Pablo Ortiz, who is normally a central defender, went on to play as a winger, and Kevin Andrade made a central pairing with Marlon Torres.
Santa FeFrom the outset, he had a wrong plan, because when he had the chance to lift the ball, he charged short and played low. But when he remembered the same old formula, he made America look bad.
(Also read: Not to believe! The incredible goal that Adrián Ramos missed).
Change of plans
With the stamp of the house, a corner kick, Santa Fe began to close the gap 40 minutes into the first half. Collection of a corner kick from the north with the eastern, initial shot by Patricio Cucchi that bounces off a defender and Jeisson Palacios takes the scissor ball and defeats the goalkeeper Joel graterol.
Between an emboldened Santa Fe and a distracted America came a second cardinal goal, marked by controversy. Minutes before, Graterol hit Ortiz on the head. The defender threw himself to the ground and forgot about the play. The rest of his teammates were asking to stop the game. Diego Valdés took advantage and put a change of front and Fabian Sambueza he made a right hook and then shot with his left foot and scored the 2-0, in the third minute of recovery of the first stage. The subsequent kicking of America was only in a couple of yellows, because, in the long run, the goal is legal.
Also: (‘I think at some point they mistreated us unfairly’: Cruz Real).
America, from the outset, changed the way of playing, by putting Daniel Quinones to play side instead of Rodrigo Ureña, who, in turn, had replaced Andrade. The Chilean went to the middle of the field to accompany Luis Paz as the second midfielder of the brand, to see if they could take the ball away from him to attack.
But, in addition to the figure, America changed its attitude, at least for a while: it began to attack to regain at least the second goal advantage. And he had it: Adrián Ramos, alone in front of the goal, crashed it on the horizontal, and then, Leandro Castellanos stopped a key ball from Duvan vergara. But then he decided to hold out as best he could and when he could, stuck in his field, waiting to see if he could get something in a counterattack.
Santa Fe, for its part, was changing pieces in the second stage until it was almost with the same team that started in Cali, with Ramos, Velásquez and Osorio on the court, plus the modification of Enrique Serje by Andrés Pérez. And in this way, at the point of his heart, eager, but with little football, he tried to corner America.
As the visitors did not commit fouls, the locals decided to start throwing balls into the area, to see if one of those balls ended in a new foul, a saving header or suddenly a penalty. None of that came out, although in America, some began to see the ghosts that plagued them in the Libertadores Cup, more precisely in Porto Alegre, where he lost twice in the match, against Internacional, with a goal by Boschilia in the 90th minute, and Gremio, with a penalty in the spare time. This time fortune was on his side. America is two-time champion.
Jose Orlando Ascencio
Sports Deputy Editor
