The Copa Libertadores de America (sponsored by Bridgestone) is in its 57th year. Clubs from CONMEBOL and Mexico play in a complicated system from March through to July and the winners will qualify for the 2016 FIFA Club World Cup in Japan.
The last competition's title holders along with 5 clubs from Argentina and Brazil each puls 3 clubs from all the other countries in South and Central America make up the competitors.
Clubs such as River Plate, The Strongest (heard of them? From Bolivia), Corinthians and minnows Independiente de Valle are already sorted out.
The top two ranked teams in the 8 of four team leagues has gone through to the knock out phase. These have been ranked by points, goals etc so that Atletico Nacional of Colombia came 1st out of 16 and Huracan of Argentina 16th. They played each other over two legs and Atletico won 4-2 as they should.
Ind del Valle were ranked 10th and played River Plate ranked 7th. Valle upset the odds and won 2-1 and go into the semi-finals. Joining them are Boca, Sao Paulo and Atletico. In the semi Valle beat Boca 3-3 and 5-3 on penalties) and Atletico won over Sao Paulo 4-1, both over two legs.
So rank 10 meet rank 1 in the final which has already had a first leg in Sangloqui, a suburb of Quito with a 1-1 draw. The match was played at the Estadio Olimpico Atahualpa (35,000 capacity) rather than at the club's home base which only hold 8,000.
del Valle was founded in 1958 and is very much a community club with only three of their squad coming from Uruguay and the rest from Ecuador.
The second leg is on the 27th at the Atletico home in the Estadio Atanasio Girardot, Medellin. (Girardot was a revolutionary leader who foought alongside Simon Bolivar!)Watch out for the score!
No comments:
Post a Comment