Colón largely absorbed the absence of the injured Luis “Pulga” Rodríguez and came out to win at the Defensores del Chaco stadium against Olimpia who tried the same thing but were inferior to a Santa Fe team from which the Venezuelan referee Jesús Valenzuela removed the victory by annulling him two legitimate goals to Cristian Bernardi and Eric Meza, to take just an unfair 0-0 that left him second in Zone G of the Copa Libertadores.
The “sabaleros” were superior in a round-trip match corresponding to the third date of the group phase that had the main protagonist in Valenzuela, for sanctioning two non-existent advanced positions to Bernardi in the first half and to Meza in the complement, when both converted being enabled by more than a meter.
Colón has no luck every time he goes to Asunción, since in this city, although in the La Nueva Olla stadium, owned by Cerro Porteño, at the time the leader of this group with 7 points, in 2019 he fell in the Cup final South American against Independiente del Valle, from Ecuador.
On that occasion, “Flea” Rodríguez missed a penalty and this time he could not even travel due to a detachment of the right adductor. Nor could the Uruguayan goalkeeper Leonardo Burián, who had to travel urgently to Montevideo due to an assault on his home.
The Uruguayan Andrew Teutén also played for the “Flea” from the start and Burián was replaced by Ignacio Chicco, with a great performance every time he was summoned to intervene due to the offensive arrests of the “Dean”.
But Colón was the one who proposed the most, encouraged by a good number of “sabaleros” fans who came to Asunción again, although far from those 35,000 who broke all records of an Argentine team traveling abroad.
And in that future of the game, the good work of the Uruguayan goalkeeper Gastón Olveira, the inexperience of some strikers Ramón Ábila, who failed in a one-on-one with the local goalkeeper practically taking the ball ahead at the moment of defining, plus the decisive Terrible performance of a referee who with VAR (not used in the group stage) would have had to retract his rulings, ended up harming Colón.
It is that the Santa Fe deserved to take three points instead of one, with which they reached 4, three less than Cerro Porteño, one more than Peñarol, from Montevideo and two more than their rival tonight.
But Colón will have the opportunity to reach the top of the group next Wednesday, when from 7:00 p.m. he receives the leader, Cerro Porteño, while Olimpia will be local again like today, on the same day but at 9:00 p.m., against Peñarol .
