When a team is for champion, everything works in its favor. From being almost liquidated, with a Tolima that was going to follow long, Atlético Nacional had two key moments, a saved penalty and a goal in the last minute, to be crowned Colombian soccer champion again, after five years.
The one of necessity, the one of urgency, the one that had to go out and propose was Tolima. And he assumed responsibility with everything: they were 23 minutes at sheer vertigo, with the intention of taking ahead everything that tried to get through. Nacional was surprised and the only thing he managed to do was to lock himself in the surroundings of his goal and close spaces.
In that start, Tolima found the first formula to break that wall of Nacional: to play first class and surprise. And so, also with a bit of luck, he began to reduce the distance from 3-1 in the first leg on Wednesday in Medellín: Junior Hernández came on free to shoot the cross, after a wall with Jeison Lucumí, and Emanuel Olivera deflected to put it in in Kevin Mier’s arc.
It was a fair reward, because before that he had already had a ball from Ureña that burned the goalkeeper’s hands and a couple of shots from Jonathan Marulanda that opened a gap, but that did not end well.
The game dropped in intensity, Nacional was finally able to get out of his area a little and test how focused goalkeeper William Cuesta was, with a shot by Jéfferson Duque that touched the horizontal.
But with that attitude from the visitor, Tolima found space and hit the second blow, the one that equalized the match throughout the final, with a good cross from Luis Fenando Miranda (who had entered for Ibargüen, injured) and a header from Juan Fernando Caicedo .
The first ten minutes of the second half were a collective electrocardiogram in Ibagué and Medellín, with fans from side to side watching the VAR. First, a penalty from Olivera to Miranda that judge Andrés Rojas had not seen. And in a couple of minutes, it went from a possible 3-0 to a numerical inferiority: Daniel Cataño charged very badly, Mier saved and on the rebound, the collector hit Mier badly. Cataño ended up expelled, again, under the gaze of video arbitration.
The red card took the excitement out of the game. Nacional did not take advantage of the player too much, although he did demand goalkeeper Cuesta on a couple of occasions. In one of them, again, the VAR appeared in a leading role, when Dorlan Pabón put it in after a rebound from the goalkeeper, but the action was annulled because in the play prior to the initial shot, Jéfferson Duque received offside. In the Murillo Toro you breathed deeply…
But in two minutes, the landscape changed completely. First, a free kick for Nacional. Giovanni Moreno, who came in for Daniel Mantilla and was key in helping his team, charged and demanded Cuesta. And from that corner kick came the 2-1, the one that gave Nacional the star, in the 90th minute: Yeison Guzmán’s collection, Olivera’s combing and Jarlan Barrera’s second header.
Life can change in a minute. Or in two, at the beginning or at the end. And so, Nacional, who willingly and hierarchically compensates for some mistakes on the field, celebrates its seventeenth star. He is the most times champion, by far.
Jose Orlando Ascencio
Sports Sub-Editor
@josasc
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