Cruz Azul ended Orlando City's great streak on penalties and advanced in the Leagues Cup

With a great performance from Colombian goalkeeper Kevin Mier By stopping two penalty kicks against the Swede Robin Jansson and the Icelandic Dagur Dan Þórhallsson, Cruz Azul broke a historic streak in this type of definition of Orlando City (5-4) and thus advance to the round of 16 Leagues Cup final in a duel held at Inter&Co Stadium in that city in the state of Florida.

Without a doubt the performance of the Colombian goalkeeper It was the cherry on the cake of the victory of the Celestial Machine, In addition to giving Mexico a place in the round of 16 of the 2024 Leagues Cup, it also helped the Mexican team end Orlando City’s nine-year unbeaten streak when it came to deciding matches in penalty shootouts, where they had won on nine previous occasions.

But there is always a first time and now the team from this city in Florida could not overcome the hurdle of the tenth series of penalties and with two missed shots, one in a normal series and the other in sudden death, they were stuck in the round of 16 to allow Cruz Azul to advance to the round of 16. to face the Mazatlán Gunners who eliminated DC United 1-2.

Without a doubt an important victory for the current runner-up of the Liga MX, Not only does it allow them to keep up with their constant activity, but it also cleans up the poor image they gave in last year’s edition, where they rushed the dismissal of the then technical director Ricardo Ferretti.

Now the story was different and with Mier between the posts he saved the error of the Uruguayan Ignacio Rivero who, when starting the penalty shootout for the Machine, missed his shot, but then they scored in the final. Andrés Montaño, the Colombian Willer Ditta, the Argentine Gonzalo Piovi, Angel Sepulveda and Uriel Antuna to claim victory.

While Orlando City was stuck in this penalty-kick sort of thing with the aforementioned mistakes by Janssen and Dagur Dan Þórhallsson, which prevented the successful shots by the Uruguayan Nicolás Lodeiro, Colombian Luis Muriel, American Duncan McGuire and Uruguayan Facundo Torres, could prevent Cruz Azul from ending its long streak of nine successful penalty shootouts since 2015.

The actions

The penalty shootout gave much more prominence to what the 90 minutes of action left behind, as both Orlando City and Cruz Azul engaged in a dog-eat-dog give-and-take. In other words, both teams prioritized more physical play than football talent and that is where the American team seemed to have more of an advantage.

But from there, Kevin Mier’s image took on a lot of significance when he took away goals scored by Facundo Torres and Duncan McGuire himself, when they were in front of the sky-blue goal. While Peruvian Pedro Gallese, goalkeeper of the Americans, miraculously saved his goal in the dying moments of the match when Ángel Sepúlveda unleashed a tremendous cross shot that the South American goalkeeper was barely able to deflect with his nails.

These aspects prepared the environment for the fateful definition in penalties where in the end Cruz Azul came out with the flags unfurled towards the round of 16 against Mazatlán, being two of the four Mexican teams together with Pumas and Toluca still alive, representing Liga MX in this competition against Major League Soccer (MLS) teams.

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