Game 12: Atlante home

PUMAS v Atlante
8th October 2006
CU

Video Highlights

The football world is upside down. Scotland beat France, Wales lose 5-1 to Slovakia, River beat Boca, and Pumas lose to Atlante. At home ffs. At least England got a good point at home to Macedonia.

Unbelievably Sancho is still out, and even more unbelievably Tuca decided to start with bloody Chupa “Invisible Man” Lopez again. To be fair he wasn’t the only one missing in action today.

So with Castro looking more and more comfortable as defensive midfielder we started brightly, but only four minutes in we had disaster, the like of which we are getting all too used to. We gave away a soft goal, partly Veron, and more so Moreno to blame, very disappointing indeed, and as Bernal went down in a futile attempt to stop it he somehow contrived to (possibly) break his right arm, or shoulder. Should be out for a long while. His replacement, Rogelio Rodriguez, did not have much to do, but did it well.

Gonzalez hustled a lot, missed a golden opportunity, and ultimately his hard work led to us scoring, which the referee disallowed following the intervention of his linesman, who saw a foul that simply did not exist. This lineman was poor, and the ref was not much better.

Just before half-time Alcantar came in hard from behind on Parejita, and the ref could not hide his glee in pulling out a straight red. For me it was a clear yellow, but I was not complaining, and wondered if we could make the most of this advantage in the second half. Could we fuck.

Half time saw two changes:- the lad Alanis for Chupa Lopez who had been awful again, maybe even worse than v Queretaro. And Parejita got rid of his red boots, for his yellow ones. His red ones never seem to work that well in the first half, not sure why he bothers with them.

The second half was nearly all us, but we had to be smart to the counter attack, and when Tuca pulled off Moreno for Reinaldo his intention was clear. He wanted a complete lack of shape and ideas, apparently. From here on in, it was quite depressing, we had four strikers on the pitch, and sometime 6 or 7 in the box, and all our thousands of crosses did not really trouble them. Gonzalez had an excellent shot come back off the underside of the bar, and another saved well, but basically that was it. Once Veron got his second yellow (for a tiny pull on shirt, following his first yellow which was for literally nothing at all) we really knew there was no hope.

Clearly once down to 10 men they played very very defensively, but equally clearly we did not have the resources to break this down. I do enjoy Tuca’s way of playing, but it all falls down if we concede an earlyish goal: - and this is the third time on the spin we have done so….. we must stop that.

I think a loss next week at home to Tecos will see the start of a Tuca out campaign. Who knows if Sancho will be back in time to help his mentor, and Bernal could be gone for weeks. We need to start concentrating again, and clearly creativity was missing badly today.

Ratings:-
Bernal – 5 – too little time to say (subbed off injured 7 mins, possible broken arm)

Velarde – 7 – Good game again, defensively sound, and intelligent and determined attacking
Moreno – 5 – not a good game for him today, and to blame for goal. (subbed off tactical 56 mins)
Veron – 6 – not himself at all today, partly to blame for the goal, grew as the game wore on. His first yellow was for nothing; his second looked very much like a dive.
Pikolin – 8 – MOM – an excellent performance, in his various roles, passing good and intelligent, a rock at the back, great support to Parejita. Even when last man he did not get caught out, despite his “pace”. A good shot, and a header off the line to boot.

Castro – 6 – as always nothing spectacular. But equally nothing bad, maybe should have had a couple more long shots, and was as incisive as everybody else
Leandro – 7 – more of the old battling Leandro, not quite attacking enough, but finally showing some trust in Castro
Parejita – 7 – once again always wanting it, always keen to stand in front of the defender wiggling his feet. Crossing not good enough, overall, although had a few good ones.

Scocco – 6 – didn’t see much of him today, a silly booking seemed to get to him. Only a couple of runs, and tended to run himself into trouble
Lopez – 4 – really poor again, took the disallowed goal well, but I think his first touch of the ball was on 20 mins when he kicked a simple 5 yard pass into touch (subbed off half time)
Gonzelez – 8 – pick of the forwards today, hustled well, great work to make Chupa’s “goal”, couple of lovely shots… but did mess up a great chance early doors.

SUBS
Rodriguez – 7 mins – 7 - good overall, out quick, saved a good chip (but was bit of position for it)
Alanis – half time – 6 – anonymous
Reinaldo – 56 mins – 5 – even more anonymous

DT
Ricardo “Tuca” Ferretti - 7 - Starting with Chupa obviously wrong. Continues to undermine his big signing by bringing Alanis on ahead of Reinaldo. Did up the ante when we needed it. The endless hopeful crosses as the only idea may not have been his fault. Castro looks much better, but I am not sure he wouldn't have been wiser to leave Castro as right back, and use Pikolin as defensive midfielder when Sancho was out. Castro is more creative, but Pikolin is better in that role than defender, and although he had an excellent game today, his accident-proneness is less of a fatal problem there.

Cards:-
Pumas
Lopez 33 min
Scocco 34 min
Veron 67 and 85 mins
Leandro 84 min

Atlante
Cervantes 33 mins
Alcantar 43 mins – straight red
Olalde 53 mins
Espinosa 82 mins

Goal:-
4 mins - Jesus Olalde filtered the ball through for Gustavo “El Grillo” Biscayzacú, who scored with his right foot, with a light touch over the out rushing Bernal

Crowd:-
40,000. Seemed like much less to me.

Injury/Suspended:-
Bernal tore his ligaments of his right elbow and will be out at least six weeks. Veron will miss the next match, following his red card. This means that we now have only two players who have played every minute of the tournament so far: - Castro and Palacios.

Elsewhere in Mexico:-
Querétaro get another win, which takes them right out of the zone, but it is at the expense of Tecos (0-2), who are having a nightmare, and this very bad season has dragged them into the relegation zone. They have lost 8 this season, and have just 8 points. The big top of the table clash between Jaguares and Toluca finished honours even, 1-1, another goal from Marioni, before being sent off on 35 minutes, two minutes before team-mate Gonzalez. He was sent off for a foul on Ismael Fuentes (Chile). You may remember Marioni, at Pumas, being sent off for a foul on this same player when he was at Tecos, back in January 2005:- Marioni had a rip on his shirt, right through the Puma. Top of group B sees San Luis continue their march, beating Monterrey 1-0. Veracruz’s demolition of Santos (5-1), sees them getting further out of trouble, whilst Santos sink further into it. How did we only get a draw there? After last weeks great showing in the clasico it seemed Chivas were on a roll, but they lost 3-2 this week to struggling Morelia in an exciting match. Finally Cruz Azul win 2-0 away to Tigres, who are having a poor season. This led to the rarest of things here, a sarcastic headline, but they certainly looked relieved, their first win in 8 games. Mizrahi seems to have weathered the storm, and looks set to stay, but the Tigres faithful want rid of their president, Urdiales. America beat Hugo’s Necaxa 2-1.

Pumas Morelos:-
Some good news, as our “Primera A” (2nd division) team, beat Monterrey’s second team 2-0, with goals from David Toledo and Pedro Solis. Rather excitingly the 11 points they have from the ten games in this, their first season of existence, puts them also in danger of relegation.

Back to the main team, we would still just squeeze into the liguilla, and our run-in is not too bad. Tecos at home, America away (not been beaten there for 6 years in the league), Monarcas at home, San Luis away and Tigres at home. Should be at least 10 points.

Group 1
1st Jaguares 21pts +6
2nd Atlas 20pts +7
3rd Cruz Azul 17 +2
4th Chivas 16pts +5
5th Queretaro 16pts -3
6th Necaxa 13pts -5

Group 2
1st San Luis 20pts +4
2nd Atlante 20pts +2
3rd Veracruz 19pts -2
4th Pachuca 17pts +7
5th Monterrey 17pts +2
6th Tecos 8pts -12

Group 3
1st Toluca 22pts +13
2nd America 21pts +4
3rd PUMAS 17pts +3
4th Monarcas 14pts -5
5th Tigres 10pts -17
6th Santos 6pts -12

And we need all those points:-
Descenso:- bottom 5
1.2875 Veracruz 103 from 80
1.2500 Tigres 100 from 80
1.2375 Tecos 99 from 80
1.1500 PUMAS 92 from 80
1.1250 Santos 90 from 80

Next Up:-
Sunday 15th October 2006 v Tecos CU. This really should be an easy win, they are very poor, and have lost to pretty much everybody this season. They have scored 18, but conceded 30. Essential all round that we win this one, for liguilla, and more importantly, for the descenso; it's six-pointer. However, we will be without Bernal and Veron, so it’s not going to be so easy.