Sometimes there are stories without a villain. This Friday, Palmeiras justly won the final of the women’s Copa Libertadores against Boca Juniors. It was a 1-4 that was resolved as soon as the second half started, after finishing the first in a draw. Played in Quito, Ecuador, in a half-empty stadium where the local crowd was leaning far in favor of the Argentines, the Brazilians got their first international trophy after a couple of years of meteoric rise that culminated in their first participation in the cup. The enthusiasm of both was noticeable: they ran the entire field until the last minute. In the end, Brazilian soccer prevailed, absolute owner of the continent regardless of gender, but joy can be shared. For Las Gladiadoras de Boca, who had participated in six previous editions, it was also their first final and a consolidation in the largest South American tournament, which has become the torment of their male pair in recent years.
The scoreboard opened as soon as the game started. At minute four, Ary Borges took advantage of a mistake made by the Argentine defense and finished off on the edge of the small area without forgiving him. The tie came 10 minutes later, from a filtered pass by Vanina Prieringer that left Brisa Priori alone in front of the goalkeeper. After a first block, Priori followed the ball and finished off against the net. The VAR granted it to him two minutes later.
The Gladiadoras controlled the game during the rest of the first half, with the clearest opportunity to turn the game around in the 21st minute. After a counterattack, captain Yamila Rodríguez, scorer for Boca and the Argentine team, crashed a shot against the stick.
Palmeiras entered the second half transformed. Three minutes later, the Argentines got up early with a headed goal from Byanca, impossible to tackle in the bottom corner of the right post. Poliana Babosa, at 57, and Bia Zaneratto, at 88, sealed the final result.
Both teams played their first continental final. Boca had a difficult road: they beat defending champion Corinthians 2-1 in the quarterfinals, and eliminated Colombian Deportivo Cali on penalties in the semifinals. It was a huge joy for the most popular team in Argentina, which has not celebrated a continental title for more than a decade.
“It’s a wonderful day, they have made me celebrate more than on Sunday,” the club’s vice president, Juan Román Riquelme, had congratulated them in a phone call after the semifinals that the club broadcast on social networks. The men’s Boca had just won the National League a few days before, but among the Boca fans, everything is little compared to the continental tournament that knew how to reign at the beginning of the century. Riquelme knows this better than anyone, who in addition to being a director and idol of the club, is a moral leader of his fans and was captain of the last Boca that won a Libertadores, back in 2007.
Palmeiras, on the other hand, arrived undefeated. But unlike its men’s team, which has become one of the most powerful clubs on the continent by lifting the trophy in the last two Libertadores, the women of the Verdao they reached the final at their premiere. The women’s Palmeiras have had a brilliant couple of years after a bitter one: the subsidiary was reopened in 2019, after a seven-year break that was interrupted when the South American Football Confederation required that all men’s teams have a women’s pair and at least one training division for young girls. That 2019, the year of its revival, Palmeiras won the second division championship and managed to consolidate itself in the national league.
It is not a small thing. In Brazil, where the championship has been officially played since 2013 with the organization of the Brazilian Football Confederation, there is absolute hegemony centralized in São Paulo. The teams from the country’s richest state, where Palmeiras also plays, have won nine editions: four from Corinthians, which is also the top winner of the Libertadores, two from Ferroviaria, which won the last continental cup, and another three divided between the Santos, Rio Preto and Olympic Center. The only team that faced them was Flamengo, who play at home in Rio de Janeiro.
Centralism is also a problem in Argentina. Boca, the last champion, leads the absolute table with 26 titles between the amateur tournament founded in 1991 and the professional one, which began in 2019. All the other champions are teams from Buenos Aires or its suburbs. But things are starting to change. The Boca Gladiators lifted the trophy on September 25 in a historic atmosphere: from locals in La Bombonera, they set an attendance record in national women’s soccer, with 18,000 people in the public. The mark lasted less than two weeks. On October 5, Belgrano de Córdoba (650 kilometers north of the Argentine capital) won promotion to the first division in front of 28,000 spectators. It will be the first team from a province that is not attached to the capital to participate in the tournament. In a league that is played every week and communicated by bus, the challenge will be enormous. Not to mention if they classify the Libertadores.
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