The Bogota teams Santa Fe and Millionaires, were in group A along with Junior and Pereira. The two classics give them the advantage of having to travel less, but the rivalry and the background will play a separate game.
Santa Fe defies the forecasts. He did not have a pointer suit, and yet that is how he arrived, he ranked first in the home runs, he is the most successful, with 10 victories, and he arrives grown up to fight in group A. That Santa Fe on the rise has his first goal in sight rival, Millonarios, whom he already beat, whom he already knows well, and from whom he took away the privilege of being first.
Santa Fe had its favorable breaking point precisely from the last classic. That day, he brought out his inner strength and pulled off an epic comeback and a key 3-2 victory, which was based on strategy, changes and courage, which is the hallmark of this team. From there, the cardinals rose, they became strong.
And now, that they will have the blues in front of them again, in two group A games, they already have that antecedent as a starting point to prepare for the first duel. It is not a guarantee, but DT Alfredo Arias has a diagnosis of how he should play against that rival. Before that classic, Arias put the drop of poison, and made irony with the phrase that made a career in the press about how the League was too small for Millionaires. Arias did not think so. And then he went and beat him.
Santa Fe knows that Millonarios has to take the ball away from him, that he has to torpedo his possession game, to make him uncomfortable. In addition, he will have to adjust many nuts, because throughout the championship his individual and concentration errors have been constant. The urgent task to start the group against its classic rival will be to look for that defensive strength, since it came to the top having the worst number of goals against those classified, with 26, and the worst goal difference, which is also negative, -1 . He also has strengths, such as offensive power. Millionaires already suffered in the classic.
Santa Fe likes those games, those rivals, those challenges, and since it is so strong at home, being the best venue in the championship, it could take advantage of that theoretical advantage of playing 4 games in Bogotá.
Gamero, with two tough challenges ahead
millionaires He added drama to what seemed like a formality. They finally qualified, not first, but there it is, and having Millonarios in the finals means having a team that, if it regains its authority, will be a serious candidate for the title. But the team will have two immediate and demanding challenges that will show whether he is truly up from his rut or still asleep.
Before facing Santa Fe on the first day of group A, they will have a final, the Copa Colombia against Junior. That match, tomorrow at El Campín, with a 1-0 disadvantage, will have repercussions in the League. If he wins and is champion, he grows, it will be difficult for someone to stop him. But if he goes and loses that final, he may not come back from such a hard blow anymore. Especially if you take into account that the group that played him is very brave, with Santa Fe, with Junior himself and Pereira.
The problem that was generated for Millonarios is that the rivals seem to have found a way around it to complicate it. That, added to his own problems, which began to arise since that defeat against Santa Fe. The team had 8 consecutive League games without being able to win, the goal was entangled and he came to recover it on the final date against Alianza Petrolera. But it is not yet a Millionaires who provides confidence, as before.
He will need his main players to recover the level, very low in footballers who were vital like Daniel Ruiz and Carlos Gomez. He will need goalkeeper Álvaro Montero to react, because he has been making unexpected mistakes in a goalkeeper of his category. And he will need the team to translate into results all the good things that his coach, Alberto Gamero, highlights game by game, that no one gets past him, that they play to win in all places…
Unlike Santa Fe, Millonarios has lost strength at home, in fact the last few games in Bogotá have gotten tangled up, where they scored two points out of the last 18, so if they don’t react, they can give them advantages there.
PAUL ROMERO
Editor of THE TIME
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