Game 12: Atlante away

Atlante v Pumas
24th March 2007
Estadio Azteca

Video Highlights - our goal, our red, our anger

Another two points dropped. For the third consecutive week this blog has the same opening. This time the blame lies on a) a poor decision by the ref, b) poor substitutions by Tuca and c) surprise, surprise, poor finishing.

With Palencia, Castro and Veron all on international duty, we were expecting some changes. Gonzalez in for Palencia, and Espinosa in for Castro were not big surprises, but Alex Diego in at centre back for Veron was. In the event, he had an excellent game there, and that made his early substitution even more inexplicable.

I thought the first half was bright and interesting, we saw some good work from both Scocco and Pareja, and a lovely long shot from Sancho, who was much more the commanding presence we want to see regularly.

How we play, and especially against Atlante, we really did not want to concede first. They had the odd chance, but their shooting was appalling, and we had no real scares, and clearly had the best of the first half – but again, no goal. Probably the best chance came from a nice Pareja pass into the box, chipped nicely over the out-rushing keeper by Scocco, for a charging Gonzalez, who was beaten by a toe to it by the defender.

The team seemed much more positive than normal, and I believe the absence of Palencia helped. Straight from kick-off, Gonzalez showed us once again what he gives us that Paco doesn’t. A long ball down the wing was chased down well by Gonzalez, who got the ball, and ran at them, not once looking for a backward pass. In the box he crossed for Scocco, whose little touch was well saved by the brave Vilar, but was being chased down by Pareja, who never likes to see anything go unchallenged. He headed coolly into the net, 14 seconds from kick off.

This was when Tuca made the first of his odd changes. Diego had had a good game at the back, against a not too brilliant attack. He had a couple of times shown skill, vision and courage in bringing the ball out, once picking up the ball on the edge of our area, and running the full length of the pitch, before being brought down on the edge of their box. However, Tuca saw something I hadn’t and decided to pull him off. He brought on Íñiguez.

This messed up our shape for a while, and we certainly lost our way a bit, although we continued to dominate in the midfield. As far as I could tell, Espinosa moved over to centre-back, and Pareja to right back, with Íñiguez on the wing. I could not understand this move at all. Both Diego and Espinosa were doing well, and Pareja was looking quite dangerous.

We gradually got back into it, and then Tuca made another error, which was aborted. He wanted to take both Gonzalez and Scocco off for Barrera and Solis. I felt it was foolish to take both of them off. We were clearly on top still, but Atlante were pushing, and up for it.

In the event, however, a typical Mexican referee rush of blood stopped that substitution. El Paisano was walking off the pitch, not quickly, but not slowly. So he got booked for time-wasting. This was probably fair enough – just. He continued to walk off, and a few yards from the touchline he started jogging. The ref rushed in at this point to give a second yellow for the same offence. Just plain wrong in all aspects. So the subs were cancelled, and we were down to ten. I am not sure about the rules on this, but am sure Kenny is. Once the board has gone up, can the player be sent off? Once it’s gone up, can the substitutions subsequently be cancelled? It all seemed a bit dodgy to say the least. And every commentator and media source in Mexico agrees with me – it was a bad decision from a ref who actually had good game, otherwise.

A couple of minutes later Tuca stuck to his guns and took his only recognised striker, Scocco off, for Barrera, That, also was a mistake. Atlante continues pressurising, and you felt we need another goal to be sure. And we had plenty of chances. Íñiguez unsurprisingly messed up two one-on-ones and Sancho a third. Late on and an Íñiguez shot was stopped by a hand. It looked ball to hand, and was either a penalty and a card, or no penalty. You can usually rely on a Mexican ref to get it wrong, he gave a penalty and no card.

With no recognised penalty taker on the pitch Leandro stepped up. The omens were not good. His last penalty was against Boca Juniors in December 2005. He did not score. Up until this point there had been 6 penalties awarded at the Azteca this season, 5 had not been converted. The outside of the post made this statistic 6 missed from 7.

Squandering this many chances, and still pushing forward made us ripe for a sucker punch. Deep in injury time a fast break away, a nice cross from “The Hobbit” was met with a lovely header by Robles. Two points thrown away. Season in tatters. Still not mathematically safe from relegation.

A furious Sancho was trying to get himself sent off after final whistle (as he had on our last visit to the Azteca), but Tuca rushed on and ordered his players in. He looked furious, as well he might, but his ill-thought out substitutions played their part in our downfall.

Ratings:-
RoRo – 7 – not much to do again, couldn’t really do anything about the goal. Oh, it seems official: - He is good looking, which I find extraordinary

Velarde – 7 – no real problems today
Pikolin – 7 – solid, but did get done a couple of times, uncharacteristically
Diego – 8 – I thought he had an excellent game, I think his first time at centre-back in his life (subbed 51 mins)
Espinosa – 7 – much better at right back than centre back

Chiapas – 6 – he seemed a more obvious candidate for coming off, and with Ailton on the bench at last….
Leandro – 7 – good game overall, but has to lose points for missing pen
Sancho – 8 – MOM – would have got more, but missed good chance to wrap it up late on
Parejita – 8 – good game again, so positive, well taken goal, looked a little at sea position wise at right back, but why would you play him there?

Gonzalez – 8 – he just makes defenders uncomfortable. Another honest performance
Scocco – 7 – good movement, good work (subbed 79 mins)

Subs:-
Íñiguez – 6 – 51 mins – does cause problems, but had several chances to finish it off, and just didn’t
Barrera – 6 – 79 mins – not on long.

DT
Ricardo “Tuca” Ferretti – 5 – I was surprised by Diego at the back (where was Moreno?), but it paid off. However his substitutions throughout were clearly wrong. He gets extra points for saving further cards after full time.

Cards:-
Atlante
6 mins – Arturo
30 mins – Vilar
33 mins – Gonzalez
69 mins – Biscayzacú
89 mins – Canío

Pumas
60 mins – RoRo – time wasting, very very harsh
70 mins – Parejita
75 mins – 76 mins – RED – Gonzalez – bad refereeing once again has an impact on the result

Goals:-
0-1 – 45 mins – Gonzalez skinned his man, crossed to Scocco, whose attempted dink was deflected, where the on-rushing Jose Luis “Parejita” Lopez coolly headed home
1 -1 – 90 mins+ - a fast break, left short handed at the back, good cross from Bermúdez, met well by Adalberto Robles’ head, low and across the goal

Crowd:-
20,000 – almost all Pumas. I didn’t make it, but the big man did – they got theirs up The Halligan End

Elswhere in Mexico:-
The important news of us is that Santos won again. 1-0 v Veracruz. I am getting more annoyed about losing to them as the season wears on. Chivas a Cruz Azul had their matches moved to mid week at the last minute, so not as to suffer from international call ups. We had three out, Atlante none, and both those two won. And it seems Chelito’s recovery is nearly there. Queretaro got more dodgy refs, and drew 2 all with Tecos, Toluca got their 8th draw of the season, nil all v Jaguares. So far this season 29 of the 105 games have been drawn.

Descenso and Group:-
We still have a chance to get to play offs, but we MUST start winning, 4 draws on the spin, 3 of which, at least, we should have won: - if we had, would be top of the group by 2 clear points now. But, if “if”s and “but”s were pots and pans, there’d be no trade for tinkers:-

1st America 20 pts +8
2nd Tigres 17 pts -3
3rd Monarcas 16 pts +3
4th UNAM 16 pts +2
5th Toluca 14 pts +2
6th Santos 12 pts -4

Remember the top two go through direct, and then the next four in general go to play-offs for the play-offs.

Five games left, that’s a total of 15 points available, and in the descenso we are on 120 points from 97 games (1.2371), and Santos on 107 from 97 (1.1031) – that’s 13 points difference, so still not quite safe. Also in big trouble are San Luis 75 from 63 (1.1905), and Queretaro 31 points from 29 (1.0690). this season San Luis have played their under 21 minutes, and Queretaro have only 19 mins left, so we should not be seeing 3 points deducted again.

Next Up:-
We are away at Tecos, Sunday 1st April, at 4pm. No April Fools I hope, we should be at full strength, but I would rather have seen Scocco and Gonzalez start this sort of game, but El Paisano has got a one match ban upheld by the Comisión Disciplinaría de la Federación Mexicana de Fútbol. And they wonder why no one has respect for them…

Sporting Quiz:-
I have been meaning to put this in for ages. This year we have the ICC Cricket World Cup, and the FIFA under 20 World Cup:- Can you name the only THREE countries to have qualified for the finals of both these competitions? (clue:- they are not traditional footballing countries, or cricket countries)