“We want to be champions”. That is the cry that the walls of the Hernán Ramírez Villegas stadium have kept for 51 years and that today, finally, could leave the stone edges to see the light of reality. This is how the fans of Deportivo Pereira feel, who tonight have no other desire to ask by candlelight than to see the first star at the top of the yellow and red shield on which so many tears have been shed. The push that gave them a one-goal tie at the Atanasio Girardot, in the first leg, last Sunday, supports the illusion that reigns in Colombian families these days, and that in Pereira’s has an obvious additional seasoning: that the party is at home.
On the other side, the fans of Deportivo Independiente Medellín are not deprived of dreaming either. The fact that they have not achieved the victory they expected at home is far from turning off faith. His most immediate memory of the ability to resurface that the Antioquia team keeps It has to do with the first game of the second phase of the home runs, when Cadavid and Pons pushed each other in the middle of the rain to come back from a terrific game against Águilas Doradas. And today, with the fire illuminating millions of houses in the country, there are plenty of reasons to believe that his seventh title, after six years of drought, may be true.
The last game of Colombian soccer in this 2022, the second leg final of the tournament that coincided with the start of the World Cup in Qatar -but which today has an air of truce-, the last fight between Pereira and DIM, is the epicenter of Faith. The tie of the first leg allows the hopes to be intact on both sides. And although Pereira has the upper hand to define at home, the ball is in the middle. That’s the only truth.
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To go the whole hog
In Medellin, Pereira did the homework. With the same weapons with which he beat Junior 2-0 in Barranquilla during the last home run game, he stopped at the Atanasio Girardot and ruined the tie that today strengthens the illusion that the Matecaña team has to know what it feels like scream champion. At the end of the game, Alejandro Restrepo, the coach behind this inspiring Pereira, recognized that the 1-1 was a reward for his “courage”. And, precisely, that determination, that ability to go out and play one on one in all fields, to spare no effort and believe that any feat is possible is what has him ninety minutes away from making history today.
Throughout the entire tournament, Pereira has defended his style of play, a vertical proposal, thirsty to win, that is not intimidated by challenges. For this reason, it is perhaps almost a poem that this group of intrepid footballers is the one that is so close to the club’s first title, since their instinct is voracity.
For today, the scheme promises to be that of memory. Under the security of ‘1’ and ‘9’, by Harlen Castillo and Leonardo Castro, Restrepo would stop three defenders, four front-line midfielders, a connector and the two forwards. Most likely, he will repeat the formation that has brought him success in the last two games. Thus, Medina and Vásquez would be the SUVs in the middle. The young Yilmar Velásquez could give an air in the second half.
On the sides of Medellín, after the little effectiveness in the first game, the pillars of David González are counted for each line. Mosquera in goal, Cadavid in defense, Arregui and Ricaurte in the middle, and the Argentine Pons up front. With that backbone, plus the explosiveness of men like the veteran Felipe Pardo and the motivated Cambindo, who has just scored, the DIM hopes to take Pereira’s cane.
The eleven, with good feelings, promises to be traced to the first leg, with four defenders, four midfielders and the two ‘9’, who at the end of the tournament showed some fans that they can play together.
While the ball is rolling, the air that is breathed in Pereira is of history, of the 98 years of existence and drought that the local wants to break, and of the hope that Medellín has of concretizing its second visiting title, in the short tournaments , after 20 years of having achieved the first. That is the weight of the illusion of the Christmas star.
ANDRES FELIPE BALAGUERA SARMIENTO
SPORTS JOURNALIST EL TIEMPO
Networking: @balagueraaa
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