Colombia killed the ghost of Quito, went from less to more and drew a goalless draw against Ecuador which increases Néstor Lorenzo’s undefeated record to 12 games, although he had the opportunity to win and lost it between his own failure and a VAR decision.
It was not an easy start for Colombia, which revived some ghosts of the horrible first half of Quito in November 2010, the beginning of the end of Carlos Queiroz’s cycle. With an improvised central defender as a winger, Yerson Mosquera, Ecuador tried to take advantage of that gap.
Ecuador scored two shots on the woodwork: one, at 11 minutes, by Moisés Caicedo, after a blow from Montero when cutting off a center, and another, at 24 minutes, when Kevin Rodríguez finished from outside after a lost ball by Mateus Uribe.
Néstor Lorenzo, the coach of Colombia, sent support to Mosquera: he ended up playing, when they attacked him, with three center backs and Jhon Arias playing as a winger on the right, and thus, it was much more difficult for Ecuador to arrive, although that decision cost a problem for the future: Arias received a yellow card for a foul on Rodríguez and will miss the next game, against Brazil.
It was a difficult 30 minutes, until Colombia began to get used to the court and the height and grabbed the ball. And the fuse that activated the National Team was a shot by Arias from outside the area that required goalkeeper Moisés Ramírez.
With a little more management, Colombia began to cause scares. Before the end of the first half, Luis Díaz had a goal play disallowed for being offside and then Mosquera headed awkwardly and the ball did not go into the goal.
The two options for Colombia
The momentum allowed Colombia to have its best minutes of the match and, perhaps, of the tie at the start of the second stage. And there were two other key plays. The first, a penalty from Jhoanner Chávez to Arias that the Argentine referee Facundo Tello sanctioned without the need for VAR, at 13 minutes.
James Rodríguez faked, Rafael Santos Borré faked, and the one who ended up getting paid was Luis Díaz, who wanted to cross the ball, but goalkeeper Ramírez guessed his intention and stopped the charge, at 16.
Two minutes later, Carlos Cuesta hunted down a rebound and put the ball into the Ecuadorian goal. The north stand, full of Colombian fans, burst with joy, but now, to celebrate, you always have to wait for the VAR to validate everything, and Judge Tello was told to check whether Borré’s position, standing next to goalkeeper Ramírez, influenced the play. The goal was disallowed.
67′ MADNESS MATCH IN QUITO!!! FIRST MOISÉS RAMÍREZ STOPS LUIS DÍAZ. AFTER THE CORNER KICK COSTS SCORES, BUT A PLAYER IS WINGED BY RAMÍREZ AND COLOMBIA’S GOAL 🇨🇴 IS CANCELLED. TO ECUADOR 🇪🇨 THE VAR SMILES TODAY. SÁNCHEZ BAS WAKE UP FOR GOD. THE CHANGES !!! pic.twitter.com/FTzAfM6Hlp
— 🏆 CS IS FÚTB⚽️L & MORE ✨️ (@CabinaSports_) October 18, 2023
Ecuador got a second wind after the goal was annulled and Lorenzo had to move the bench, with the entry of Richard Ríos and Jhon Durán in place of Uribe and Borré. And since then, Colombia seemed to regain control.
Colombia was already playing with the desperation of Ecuador, which went ahead and missed the clearest option of the match, in addition to the missed penalty by Díaz: Chávez, hand in hand with Montero, with time and space to define, threw it out.
Colombia had one more option left, in the same way as the first one: a shot from outside the area by James Rodríguez that burned Ramírez’s hands. The National Team knew how to hold on and took a point that was in the calculations, but with the unpleasantness of that penalty that could have increased the prize.
Jose Orlando Ascencio
Sports Deputy Editor
@josasc
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