Millonarios made two very serious mistakes that cost him peace of mind and the first defeat of the year in the League, against a Tolima team that pressured him and hit him very hard. The team felt the effort at the beginning of 2024 and fell without mitigation 2-0, this Saturday, at the Manuel Murillo Toro stadium.
The defensive failures, strange in a team that usually defends itself well, made the 60th birthday bitter for coach Alberto Gamero, who tried to move the team in the second half to straighten a path that was twisted because of Millonarios himself.
Gamero did not initially have the two players he recovered for this match, defender Juan Pablo Vargas and midfielder Daniel Ruiz. The first came from an injury and the second, from the horrific failure of the Colombia Under-23 Team in the Pre-Olympic.
With two variations compared to the last match (Stiven Vega for Larry Vásquez and Santiago Giordana for Mackalister Silva), Millonarios played a correct game, perhaps a little overrevolutionized, with an excess of speed that took away its precision.
The game was calm until the 28th minute, when a chain of blue errors ended in Tolima’s first goal: Daniel Giraldo lost a ball with Brayan Gil when he tried to go out through the center. Gil had all the freedom to play with Álex Castro, who tried from outside the area. The ball surprised Montero, who was seriously compromised, and went into the goal.
Millonarios did not recover from that goal. Tolima put pressure on him and, as he did against América, caused an error that made two of the visitor’s representatives look very bad: a terrible return from Andrés Llinás to Montero and a hesitant exit from the goalkeeper left Yeison Guzmán with the entire goal at his disposal. its disposition. 2-0 at 38.
Gamero tried all the formulas he could with the payroll he had left and Millonarios missed Mackalister Silva’s management a lot. At halftime he took out Giraldo and Beckham Castro and put in Ruiz and Vásquez. The team was left with the ball, also at the initiative of Tolima, but it did no harm.
Rather, Tolima was left wanting to do more damage thanks to the space it found to counterattack. The third one looked closer to the vinotinto and gold than the blue discount. Montero avoided the third on two occasions, both created by Yeison Guzmán, in a shot in the area and in an attempt at an Olympic goal.
Millos made a new attempt to return to the roster: Vargas came in for Ómar Bertel and Jorge Arias ended up on the wing. And Yuber Quiñones replaced an unprecedented Jhon Largacha. And then he took out Leonardo Castro, the one who tried the most, to put in Sander Navarro. Nothing worked.
There are now three games without a win in the League and Millonarios is beginning to crash. Tolima, for its part, showed that it is a serious candidate: it already made América look bad and now it hit the table against another of the theoretical rivals in the fight to win the star.
Jose Orlando Ascension
Sports Deputy Editor
@josasc