Deportes Tolima will have a tough challenge, leaving aside the defeat in the BetPlay League, where they finished runner-up, losing the final of the tournament against Nacional at home. Separate page and the new challenge will be the Copa Libertadores, where Hernán Torres’ men broke a bad streak of Colombian clubs, going unnoticed for several editions.
The round of 16 kicked off this week. Now, the test of fire for Tolima will be nothing more and nothing less than Flamengo from Brazil, a team that has already arrived for the dispute of the first leg of the round of 16, at the Manuel Murillo Toro stadium, starting at 7: 00 pm in Ibagué.
And it is that recent years for Colombian clubs, at an international level, have been a complete disaster. Premature eliminations in previous phases, teams that fail to compete up to par in the group phase, the economic differences that exist with a large part of the historic clubs on the continent and the same level of the local competition, are some of the explanations that try to give this phenomenon.
Tolima cut a four-year streak in which a Colombian club did not say present in the round of 16, the most recent being Atlético Nacional in 2018, being eliminated in that phase. However, you have to go a little further back in time, to remember the country team that advanced to the quarterfinals.
Since the 2016 edition, when Atlético Nacional managed to win the Copa Libertadores, there are no records of a team from the country in the quarterfinals. For that contest, the purslane managed to advance and defeat Rosario Central.
