The Blue Cross will have to wait for the next and last day of the Apertura 2024 tournament to be able to set a new record for the highest number of points in both the 17 and 19 matchday modality by virtue of the fact that this Wednesday he “cruzazulear” it again with the tie against Atlas from 2-2.
The red and black of Atlas, with a goal in the last minutesthey ruined the historical mark that Cruz Azul planned to impose in the Apertura 2024 tournament with the highest number of points in the 17-day modality since the 1996 Winter championship, which represented the agonizing 2-2 draw.
Simply and simply when the Celestial Machine was on its way to adding its 13th victory of the tournament, they encountered some athletes who took advantage of the fact that Cruz Azul used several novice players to comply with the minor rule and thus spoiled the celestial plans.
Cruz Azul, if it had won, would have reached 43 pointstying the same number of units as América in the 2002 Apertura tournament, but with 19 rounds. On the other hand, this point against the rojinegros only served to equal the 41 points they added in the Clausura 2021 tournament and that León had also reached in the Clausura 2019 tournament
Now the Celeste Machine will have to wait until next Saturday in the last game of the championship against Tigres to see if they can surpass the mark of 41 points and even that of América of 43 points, but for now this Wednesday they had to leave the champagne cooling due to the effort of the Zorros team to reach this valuable tie.
The most frustrating thing for Cruz Azul is that at all times they were superior on the field of play, but they never counted that by making so many changes they gave life to the Atlas and they were able to come from behind to tie twice with goals from Eduardo “Mudo” Aguirre and Edgar Saldívar when the Machine was already preparing to celebrate its historic mark.
Without a doubt, it weighed heavily on the Celestial Machine. not having the Argentine central defender Gonzalo Piovi, Well, the two athletic goals in the center of the Cruz Azul area that spoiled the effort of having taken the lead on the scoreboard, first with Alexis Gutiérrez’s great goal at the beginning of the match.
And after the goal of the Argentine Rodolfo Rotondi through the penal route that made us think that it would only be a matter of time before the Cruzazulinos could control the actions and go over the athletic team, but in the end the self-esteem of the locals was more powerful to get the valuable tie.
The reasons for the tie
Cruz Azul appeared on the stadium field Jalisco with the absences of Gonzalo Piovi and his compatriot Lorenzo Faravelli, which undoubtedly ended up weighing on the final result of the match, simply because although it seemed that the Celestial Machine could handle the match, in the end these two pieces did not give it enough strength to achieve its purpose.
That’s why it was of little use At minute 5 Alexis Gutiérrez scored a great goal a pass from Carlos Rodríguez made it 1-0, because after the score the light blue team could not maintain the thread of the actions and allowed the Paradero team to recover until they tied the actions in the 20th minute.
Precisely in that play Atlas had already controlled the match and with a pass from the left by Luis “Huesos” Reyes allowed his teammate Eduardo Aguirre, beating Erik Lira’s back, to finish off with a header. and beat Colombian goalkeeper Kevin Mier to make it 1-1.
That note made the game fall into a give and take where the Machine once again took control of the scoreboard with a penalty goal in the 3rd minute of added time of the first half that the Argentine Rotondi converted into a goal after the VAR determined to mark a foul on the Uruguayan Ignacio Rivero.
The celestial sin
For the second half Cruz Azul paid dearly for its sin of removing important men to bring in youngsters like Andrés Montaño, Amaury Morales and Jorge García, who together with the reappeared Greek Giorgios Giakoumakis could not get into rhythm and began to allow Atlas to begin to react.
Thus the Machine was saved from at least two more goal actions until the famous mistake of the defense and Giakoumakis himself came when he left Edgar Saldívar free and he was two minutes from the end will achieve a 2-2 draw to relive those epic cross-matches that have ruined the joy of their fans on many occasions and that leave great lessons for the league.
Continue reading:
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