Tecos and America advance to next round
Santos Laguna headed into the final game of group play in Mexico’s Interliga soccer competition at the Home Depot Center winless, pointless and, basically, hopeless when it came to qualifying for the tournament finals.
Yet, for a moment, it looked as if they might pull it off.
After doing its part by scoring an improbable 3-0 win over Atlante in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, Santos Laguna had to wait for the result of the second game, between unbeaten America and Estudiantes Tecos.
If America won by at least three goals, Santos Laguna would advance.
If not, the Guerreros would go home.
“We need a helping hand,” goalkeeper Oswaldo Sanchez said.
What they got instead was a slap in the face. Because after racing out to a huge first-half lead, America, playing in front of an announced crowd of 27,000, most of them wearing the Aguilas’ yellow, wilted in the second half, giving up two consecutive goals and settling for a 3-3 tie.
That sends America, top seeded in Group A, to Wednesday’s championships, where it will play the final qualifier from Group B, which will be determined today. Tecos, meanwhile, will play Group B champion Puebla.
The winners of the two championship finals will represent Mexico in the Copa Libertadores, which begins this month.
For a time Saturday, that looked like a trip Estudiantes wouldn’t be making.
After scoring on Oswaldo Alanis’ header in the second minute, the Tecos gave up goals to Adolfo Rosinei, Salvador Cabanas and Angel Eduardo Reyna in rapid succession to fall behind, 3-1, less than 19 minutes into the first half.
And it could have been worse. In the 38th minute, America’s Jean Beausejour blew a golden scoring chance by booting the ball over the net and four minutes later, after a Tecos defender slipped, Reyna went one on one with goalkeeper Mario Rodriguez and lost when Rodriguez got his shoulder on Reyna’s attempted cross-goal pass. Minutes later, Rosinei missed scoring his second goal when his shot skidded by an open net.
Estudiantes regrouped at the intermission, however, with Rodrigo Ruiz turning a deft pass from Rubens Oscar Sambueza into a goal in the 53rd minute. Fredy Jose Bareiro scored the equalizer 12 minutes later.
That ended an evening that Santos Laguna temporarily imbued with unexpected drama on two second-half goals by Argentine Daniel Luduena, another score from countryman Vicente Matias Vuoso and strong play in goal by Sanchez.
Despite being eliminated from the tournament, Santos Laguna still had reason to celebrate because its victory ended a winless streak of 24 games for Coach Ruben Omar Romano, who took over the Torreon-based club last month.
“Records, for us, are always secondary. Records are made to be broken,” Sanchez said. “We had to win.”
Santos’ first score came on a difficult right-footed shot Vuoso was able to bend from the goal line in to the left-hand corner of the net seven minutes into the second half.
Luduena quickly added two, giving him more goals in a six-minute span than his team had scored in its first 2 1/2 games in the tournament.
The tournament continues at the Home Depot Center this afternoon with the final Group B games pitting Tigres of Monterrey against Jaguares of Chiapas at 3 p.m. and Puebla against Monterrey at 5:30.
