The purslane team had plenty of options, but found a wall under the three sticks: goalkeeper Washington Aguerre, who had a dream night in the Antioquia classic.
Nacional put all their effort into the goal that gave them the advantage at home, however, none of their forwards could overcome Aguerre’s resistance.
Alfredo Morelos assured that the intention of the entire team was to leave the first leg with an advantage, but it was not possible due to the lack of forcefulness in the rival goal.
“Their goalkeeper made some balls that were too difficult and that’s part of football. We were ambitious in attacking and looking for the result, but it didn’t happen to us,” said the Córdoba attacker.
Criticism against “the time burner”
Although Morelos highlighted the performance of Washington Aguerre, he also attacked Independiente Medellín’s approach and what they wanted to do to exhaust the last minutes of the match.
“We, with the ambition and the desire to win this match, with our people and to put on a good show, You want to play fast but the opponent’s time burner slows down the game a lot.. That is not in our hands, we have to continue,” he declared.
“With the same desire that we have, we have to look for it on Wednesday. We are going to recover as much as possible for that game. Since the first half ended, we knew that we had to give a little more,” said Morelos.
The forward insisted that Nacional was superior to its rival and only needed to be effective in the opposing goal. “Their goalkeeper came out on top, so let’s worry if we don’t create options, that does worry, but at any moment he’s going to come in… We have to rescue that second half that we fought, we created options, but the goalkeeper took several important ones,” he said.
Diego Arias also critical of the DIM
Diego Arias, coach of Atlético Nacional, was not far behind and also criticized Independiente Medellín’s defensive approach in the first leg.
“In the first half, due to Medellín’s approach with 11 players defending very closely, it was difficult for us to identify how we could progress. I think there was a team that tried to go forward, press and have the offensive proposal,” he indicated.
Arias pointed out referee Jairo Mayorga for allowing the match to continually stop. “They wasted a lot of time cooling down the game with the goalkeeper on the floor, They tried to stop the game with these types of situations, throwing themselves on the floor, faking fouls and injuries.because it is pretending; After 10 or 20 seconds they were as if nothing had happened, and the referee helped a lot because these types of actions are not penalized,” he said.
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