Millionaires have the alarms on. He no longer sleeps so peacefully. It is that Saturday’s defeat in Barranquilla against Junior, 2-1, not only tightened group A, because Nacional thrashed and climbed to first place, but also ratified a fragile point that the Bogota team has in this final stretch of the League , and it is his vulnerable defensive zone. There is a crack there that must be Alberto Gamero’s great concern for the three remaining games, to try to qualify for the final.
Millonarios has not lost his favoritism in the group, after all his defeat on Saturday was away, and after all his two strongest rivals, on paper, Junior and Nacional, have already given up points at home, already they gave advantage. In other words, the blue team continues with the mission of winning the six points that remain at home in El Campín to make a difference. But what happened on Saturday generated an inevitable alert, because of the adverse result, because of how it happened, and because the team’s game was far from its best version. And the most serious thing is that the defense is wounded, it is a defense that is lame, without stability: there is a crack that urgently needs repair.
The hard loss of Vargas
After the first match of group A, when Millonarios beat Atlético Bucaramanga in El Campín, coach Alberto Gamero was honest, he said that he was calm from the middle onwards, but that he had to figure out how he was going to put together his defense after his regular starter, his standard behind, Juan Pablo Vargas, left with his Costa Rican team. There was the hole, huge. Gamero knew it, but before dramatizing, he needed solutions.
So he chose Andrés Murillo as his replacement. He gave him the vote of confidence in a decisive stage of the championship. Murillo started against Nacional, in a 2-2 draw. And on Saturday he was one of the big players in the defeat against Junior at the Metropolitano, when he was involved in the two local goals, and in much more: the slip, the inattention, the poor control, the fall, and even the bad lucky… It wasn’t his night.
Murillo was left defenseless, he took the attacks and criticism from fans on social networks. It is not that it is a condemnation for Murillo, he can recover and fit better behind, along with Andrés Llinás, but at least for now he did leave concerns for what is to come in the outcome of the group.
Gamero admitted it: “You have to look, undoubtedly correct the defensive part, we had a hard time… Unfortunately, the game was lost in a play that we could dodge better. We have to think about the matches we have left at home”, said Gamero at the end of the match in Barranquilla.
Time of truth for Millionaires
But it wasn’t just Murillo. Unusual marking errors, collective inattentiveness, failures in the middle hurt the team in its defensive block. To make matters worse, Llinás had to leave at minute 74, due to his flu symptoms. And without Llinás you also suffer.
And since the team did not have the brilliance of other opportunities in attack, they left Barranquilla with the alarms on, because Wednesday’s game is now a mandatory victory, against that same rival that has already measured its shortcomings.
Gamero has beaten Junior three times in Bogotá: 2-0 and 4-1 in 2021, and 1-0 this year. Then they will receive Nacional, the great rival of the group. Gamero has had 3 duels against the Purslane at home: he won one (3-0 in 2020) and lost two (1-2 in 2021 and 0-2 this year).
Millonarios knows that he cannot give an inch, because his rivals are hungry, waiting for where and when they are going to take advantage of him. So what is coming will be of maximum tension. If Nacional goes and wins in Bucaramanga, he will be a serious candidate. But it is also possible that Millionaires will win in their fort and put things in order. Although the order must start back, where it limps.
PAUL ROMERO
Editor of THE TIME
@PabloRomeroET
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