Millionaires won the classic with the bench and with Silva’s experience

Millionaires lacked half a team, but not their hearts. And with a captain on fire, Mackakister Silva, plus the dedication of the emerging players who had to take on the classic 311, he was left with a hard-fought victory against a Santa Fe that made them suffer in various sections of the game.

Millionaires suffered from the long list of visitors to their medical department (Ómar Bertel, Óscar Vanegas, Stiven Vega, Jáder Valencia, Leonardo Castro and Luis Carlos Ruiz), plus those called to date by Fifa (Álvaro Montero, Juan Pablo Vargas and Óscar Cortés ).

Santa Fe wanted to take advantage of all the losses of Millonarios and in the first half he put together an operation to cover all the free spaces left by his rival. Millos was very exposed in defense, but that initiative of the reds was left only in intentions that collided with the blue defenders.

Mackalister led the way for Millionaires

After that initial lack of control, Millonarios was able to stick to the plan that Alberto Gamero had drawn up, by giving up playing with wingers, which he no longer has, and trying to put the ball into circulation. And in that period of lucidity he found the goal of the advantage: wall between Mackalister Silva and Daniel Cataño, shot by Silva blue, rebound by Silva red, the Santa Fe goalkeeper, and goal by the captain of Millos, after 15 minutes.

Santa Fe did not despair and had a good shot in the first half, in which they forced the blue defenders to push themselves by closing and holding out as best they could in the absence of a filter in the middle of the field. But some crack was going to appear, and Harold Rivera’s team took advantage of it: in the third minute of replacement, Wilfrido de la Rosa found the space to play behind and leave José Enamorado ready to beat Juan Moreno and tie the classic.

After the first stage, in Millonarios they had to open another place in the medical department: Fernando Uribe was injured and Gamero had to resort to two youngsters: Ramiro Brochero, in just his third professional game, and Ricardo Rosales, to replace Elvis Perlaza, who was saved from expulsion by finishing the first stage, forcing Gamero to take him out to take care of himself.

The red Silva failed and the blue Siva did not forgive

The forcefulness that Santa Fe did not have in the first stage was, instead, the lethal weapon of Millos, who found the advantage in just four minutes, in a play with the same protagonists of the first goal: the goalkeeper Silva released a ball after a collection of a free kick by Daniel Cataño and Mackalister, in the absence of a goalscorer on the field, decided to assume the role of gunner and scored the second.

It took almost a quarter of an hour, after Mackalister’s second goal, for Rivera to decide to touch his payroll: he took out Fabián Sambueza, Jonathan Barboza and Wilson Morelo, and bet on experience, with the entry of two great veterans, Hugo Rodallega and Wilson Morelo, plus the contribution of Kelvin Osorio.

With the changes, Santa Fe took the initiative and forced Millonarios to take refuge, with a line of five players in front of the four defenders, to try to block that game. And when he had the ball, the start was quick looking for a counterattack.

The tie could have come, in a play by Neyder Moreno, another who entered the second stage, which passed near the post. But it could also make it 1-3, in a superb play by Mackalister, who tried to bathe José Silva, but the ball fell off the crossbar, and then, in another shot by the blue captain to put the goalkeeper from Santa to fly Faith.

Fabián Viáfara’s injury, when Santa Fe had already made the five changes, took away offensive weight. And Millionaires ended up driving the clock. With a patched up team, without several starters, Alberto Gamero’s team was left with a very complicated classic.

Jose Orlando Ascencio
sports deputy editor
@josasc

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