Toluca brakes undefeated from America with forcefulness

Club América had become accustomed to victories that they did not imagine Toluca would be the executioner of their undefeated by cutting it with a 2-1 score in the first leg semifinal at the Nemesio Diez stadium.

Goals from Oscar Ortega (23′) and Leonardo Fernández (42′ penalty) will force the Eagles to seek victory at the Azteca next Saturday. But even more painful is that they ended their 14 games without defeat.

With the result, the scarlet team has already accumulated seven games without losing, after qualifying via playoffs and eliminating Santos Laguna, who directly entered the league as third place in the general table. From the opening whistle, both teams set the bar very high in terms of the intensity of the match, which was expected by the fans. América fulfilled what Fernando Ortiz promised and went in search of the first goal, however the scoreboard would open in the goal defended by Guillemo Ochoa at 23 minutes after a bad start by the Mexican goalkeeper who left a rebound in the area, same that Haret Ortega would take advantage of to push the ball into the nets.

After the goal, Toluca’s position was clear and they fell back behind midfield to try to contain the rival’s offense, look for an error to go on the counterattack and try to extend the advantage. After half an hour of play, the Red Devils not only stopped the Eagles, they also snatched the ball from them and handled it comfortably to the point of being closer to the second touchdown.

The high pressure was also key for the visitors to make mistakes on more than one occasion and, with a few minutes to play, inexperience played a trick on Emilio Lara, as he caused a penalty on Meneses that Leonardo Fernández exchanged for a goal at 42 ‘ and place the 2-0 with which the half-time break came.

For the complement, the process of the first 45 minutes was repeated at first, as the Eagles took the ball and tried to go to the front, however they did not have the clarity they showed in the past 18 games where they managed to score 49 goals. For its part, Toluca waited on their court and generated danger from the counterattack as well as from the stopped ball, so much so that Camilo Sanvezzo had made it 3-0 at 54′ but the VAR was in charge of annulling it due to a previous offside.

When the panorama looked more uncertain for America, a three-touch play put them in the game and the fight for the Apertura 2022 final. Henry Martín added one more assist (six in the current semester) and left Emilio Lara alone to shorten distances at minute 79.

The last minutes were practically for the visitors, who tried to reach the tie on the scoreboard, however they could not against the strong defense of those led by Ignacio Ambriz who contained the rival attacks even seconds before reaching the 96 minutes that were played . Tiago Volpi, Marcel Ruiz and Valber Huerta passed the exam with honors on the Nemesio Diez field and will seek to replicate their great performance on the Azteca stadium field.

deportes@eleconomista.mx