2023-09-02 06:20:06
Finally, Boca is in the semifinal of the Copa Libertadores, after having passed the eighth and fourth on penalties without having won a single game. You would have to look at the statistics to find out how many times something like this happened. And not only that, but of those four games, three ended 0-0 (the first against Nacional de Montevideo and the two against Racing). For a moment, I remembered the 2014 World Cup. In the semifinal against the Netherlands, the game ended 0-0, they went to extra time, with the same result and Argentina went through penalties. The final also ended 0-0 and in the extra time Germany scored the goal with which they came out champion. In other words, in a 120-minute semifinal and in the final of another 120 minutes, Argentina did not score a single goal. Difficult like that to be world champion. But Boca is something else, and who knows, maybe they will beat Palmeiras in the semi-final on penalties, and the final too. Nothing is unthinkable in the boster epic. The common point between the penalties of that old world cup and the penalties of the Libertadores is Chiquito Romero. If in 2014, Mascherano, selling smoke of a supposed great captain for the cameras, predicted that he was going to become a hero, the Romero of 2023 is all due to Riquelme. When he brought it, nobody gave two mangos for it, everyone thought (or we thought) that it was broken, but they took it little by little, after some initial minor injuries, it became established, and today it is the key player of a semifinalist that we still don’t know what he’s playing.
But, in my opinion, the most important game of the week was another one: the one against Defensa y Justicia, eliminating Botafogo (which is first in the Brasileirao, with more than 10 points ahead) and thus going to the semifinals of the Copa Sudamericana. . There are several things about Defense and Justice that I don’t like: the role of Bragarnik, the money that circulates to one side and the other, the then de facto semi-privatization of that club’s football. But if there is a team that, for years, has expressed coherence in relation to football, tactics, technique, the formation of groups, that is Defensa y Justicia. To give an example, among so many, Enzo Fernández would not be what he is today without his passing through Defense and Justice.
Defensa y Justicia has an obvious long-term soccer project, almost its own style of soccer, as it also has, to mention another club, Estudiantes (which deserved to beat Corinthians and ended up losing on penalties). Defense every year has to rebuild the squad, the coaches change, but the ball does not change the foot, to the spaces, the permanent rotation, the tactical look of the matches, the order that is almost never lost. I don’t know exactly the statistics, but it is likely that among the first division teams of the AMBA, Defensa y Justicia will compete with Arsenal among those with fewer fans. It doesn’t matter. At this point, as it is said in cinema and literature, Defense and Justice is a cult team.
1693638760
#Defense #Justice #cult #team