Millionaires vs. Chicó: a tie leads to the final – Colombian Soccer – Sports

millionaires he gets excited Of course: the quadrangular semifinal, so far, has been very good and the possibility of fighting for the star of June is more than real. Many recognize his good game and the classification is one step away. It could even be a 90 minute solo.

this Sunday, alberto gamero returns to familiar land: Tunja, the city where he saw his first successes as technical director, to face the Boyaca Chicoto which he gave his only star, in 2008. A win or a draw at the La Independencia stadium, in Tunja, will put Millonarios in the grand final of the League.
(Revenge: Clara Chía and Piqué destroyed Shakira with a photo that hurts her a lot) (Manchester City broke the spell: he is the Champions League champion)

To avoid scares

Millionaires do not want scares. There is a recent one, six months ago, when he reached the last date depending on himself to qualify for the final: he could not beat Santa Fe (he barely changed an agonizing tie, as if to save honor) and he saw how Sports Pereira passed by and celebrated the first star in its history.

Nor does he want to repeat the story of a year ago, when he finished first in the round-robin phase and ended up eliminated with a date missing, unable to win or score goals against Junior and National, in El Campín. Or the one in the second half of 2021, when a bad run on penalties left him without an end.

Millionaires has been gaining a lot of maturity. Starting with the coach himself, who has had to make modifications to his way of playing, some forced by casualties on the fly, such as those of Carlos Andres Gomez and Daniel Ruiz, transferred shortly before the start of the semester. And others, so that his equipment, even if it was less visible, became much more practical.

The Millos of the fireworks, the one who put rivals to sleep at the point of touch before striking them down, still appears sometimes. But the one of now shows signs of a great effectiveness. This team learned to play differently, to have other variants at other times in the already long campaign of Alberto Gamero, who has completed three and a half years at the helm of the team.

A piece of information that shows the change in the style of play and the practicality of Millonarios on the field is this: of the eight classified, only one, Boyacá Chicó, his rival today, has fewer shots on goal; the blues have 99, against, for example, 128 for Alianza Petrolera, 118 for Golden Eagles (not counting the night game), 112 for Nacional, 110 for Pasto, 106 for America and 105 from Medellín. The checkers have 78. There were even eliminated teams that kicked more on goal than Millos, such as Santa Fe (117) and Tolima (100).

Millonarios has displayed its forcefulness: it is the highest scoring team in the championship, with 36 goals (not counting Pasto vs. Águilas Doradas last night), and without depending on a single player: 15 players have scored at least one goal. Even Millonarios had to play without a better average scorer, Oscar Cortesduring the all-against-all auction and the beginning of the home runs, due to his call to the National Team.

Youth with projection

That issue, that of casualties, had already caused problems for Millionaires in previous semesters and this time, Gamero seems to have found a solution, beyond the defeat against America Mineiro on Tuesday, which sowed some doubts. The technician, however, is calm.

“It seems to me that the team had personality, they had criteria, they tried with that possession of the ball, but we couldn’t score. We made mistakes back and they charged us. There is peace of mind that the boys who entered responded to a team that did not want to give anything away and perhaps we deserved more. But this is not deserved, they did two. There were many good things, a relatively young team with a lot of personality”, Gamero explained that day.

Practically all of Millos’ starters have had to stop due to an injury, although none were serious. This Sunday’s game was no exception and Mackalister Silva, Andrés Llinás and Luis Paredes They will watch the game from Bogotá.

Gamero has done good payroll management and his hand has not trembled to give the new players play. He has used 35 players and six of them are rookies. Beckham Castro and Paredes already had opportunities as starters in the auction. For all this, Millionaires is excited. He only lacks one point for the final.
(Incredible: the goal option that Inter missed and the one that Ederson took, impressive)
(Manchester City: this is the millionaire he got by winning the Champions League)

Jose Orlando Ascencio
Sub-editor for sports at EL TIEMPO
@josasc