THE BLUE TACTICAL ORDER AND THE GREEN OFFENSIVE EXPLOSION Millonarios-Nacional: a duel of power against power José Peñuela June 18, 2023 – 8:36 PM
A FINAL The reserved forecast is that Millonarios and Atlético Nacional will play it for the title of the opening tournament. Not only because it is the first time that the Bogotá and Antioquia clubs will compete for the star of the main Colombian soccer tournament, but also because both clubs have very different soccer characteristics.
The difference starts from the bench. Alberto Gamero is a coach who has led Millionaires to have a very characteristic football order, which is reflected on the playing field, whether he puts the starting roster or substitutes.
It is clear that since 2020, when he arrived at the albiazul team, he has managed to implement a process that has allowed the club ‒which turned 77 years old yesterday‒ to be in the final stages of local tournaments, even losing the title option after having ridden in the phase of all against all.
Although the directives and the fans trust Gamero’s work and acknowledge that semester after semester he has managed to redo payrolls, surpass the sale of several of his figures and, above all, take advantage of the quarry to bring youngsters who have quickly consolidated and become figures that soon go abroad, it is also clear that the samarium technician knows that the 16th star is his great debt.
League champion in 2008 with Boyacá Chicó, with Deportes Tolima in the Copa Colombia in 2014 and four years later with the same team ‘Pijao’ in the main tournament, as well as in 2022 in the Copa Colombia already leading Millonarios, Gamero is used to playing close finals and in very complicated squares.
Not in vain is he considered the fifth Colombian national coach who has directed the most games at a professional level, after the doctor Gabriel Ochoa Uribe, Jorge Luis Pinto, Eduardo Julián Retat and Luis Augusto ‘chiqui’ García.
At the international level, Millonarios is today second in Group F of the South American Conmebol and must be played against the Argentine Defensa y Justicia, on June 29, their pass to the next phase.
On the green bench is Pablo Autuori. The Brazilian coach has coached in his country, Portugal, Peru, Qatar, Japan and Colombia. He has extensive experience at the club level and even national teams, such as the Inca and the Qatari.
Winner of several state and national titles in Brazil, Peru, Qatar, Bulgaria and Colombia (Super League, with Nacional, this year), without a doubt his greatest achievements are the Copa Libertadores that he won with Cruzeiro in 1997 and Sao Paulo in 2005, as well as like the Club World Cup that same year with the Brazilian team.
It should not be forgotten that this is the second time that Autuori has led Nacional. At the end of 2018, he arrived at the Paisa team, preceded by that great poster, but it lasted a few months, since the team did not perform as expected in the local tournament or in the main aspiration of stepping hard again in the Libertadores.
He returned to Nacional last year and his great debt continues to be the 18th star. The directives have given him most of the players he has asked for and the performance so far is good, since he has the team in the final, while in the Libertadores he is already classified for the round of 16.
Thus, it is clear that Gamero and Autuori reach the final of the championship with the need to become champions. Any other result is clear that it does not meet the expectations of the directives of their clubs nor of the player squads and, above all, of their fans.
tactical differences
Today Gamero has a team that stands out for its tactical order and possession of the ball as its main weapon. With the security of Álvaro Montero or Juanito Moreno in the goal, and a defensive four where the central defenders Andrés Llinás and Juan Pablo Vargas stand out, and the marked Elvis Perlaza and Jorge Arias, Millonarios builds his game from behind.
The idea has always been to bring the ball clean to Larry Vásquez, Omar Bertel or Daniel Giraldo who, in turn, as area heads, must interact with those who know the most with the ball, who are undoubtedly Macalister Silva and Daniel Catano. They are the ones who must exploit the speed of strikers like Leonardo Castro and Óscar Cortés, who have been alternating with Beckham David Castro, Fernando Uribe, Jader Valencia or Luis Carlos Ruiz.
It is, in short, a team that has a lot of arrivals from the sides, that knows how to open the pitch and that has players in Cataño and Captain Silva who handle the ball judiciously, arrive in the area to give a pass into the void or shoot on goal. .
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The biggest problem for the albiazules this year has undoubtedly been that they don’t know how to maintain control of the game. In several games they lost the advantage due to lack of concentration, errors by Montero or the saga. The streak of injuries has also been long, but for the final they practically have everyone on the high curve.
Nacional, in turn, is a fast team that unfolds with few passes and has a very effective offensive explosion. Autuori managed to build a team that has two good goalkeepers (Kevin Mier and Harlen Castillo), with a rear four that has the experience of Cristian Zapata or Andrés Felipe Román, and fast players who are projected like Yerson Candelo. On the first line, Jhon Solís, Jhon Duque and Sebastián Gómez are top performers when it comes to scoring and passing, in such a way that Dorlan Pabón, Jefferson Duque, Nelson Deossa, Jarlan Barrera, Tomás Ángel or Jayder Asprilla, who enter and leave the owner, they can convert.
Like Millionaires, Nacional has a hard time maintaining control of the game. He scores a lot of goals, but he also receives, winning a lot of games in the last few minutes.
unpublished ending
As stated, these two teams have never met in a major championship final. It is clear, then, that the historic rivalry between Bogota and Antioquia will have a chapter never seen before in the 75 years of existence of Colombian football.
Blue and green, the two teams with the most titles, have met in other tournaments. It is remembered, for example, that Nacional defeated Millonarios in the Copa Merconorte final in 2000. They also beat the capital team in the Copa Colombia final in 2013.
For his part, Millonarios won a Super League title for Nacional in 2018.
high alert
The BetPlay League rules clearly state that the final will be played in two games, one for the first leg and the other for the second leg (home and away). In accordance with the Regulations, the club that obtains the most points in the sum of phases I and II (“all against all” and “semifinal home runs”) will be the visitor on the first date.
Thus, the purslane will be local on Wednesday at the Atanasio Girardot stadium and the albiazules will close at the Campín on Saturday.
For now it has not been defined if the visiting fans will be allowed, but yesterday it was taken for granted that, given the history of clashes from years ago, it is most likely that only the locals will enter the games on Wednesday and Saturday.
The mayors of Bogotá and Medellín are already preparing the respective security operations, which will surely have extensive surveillance schemes inside and outside the two stadiums. /JP