By the Skin of Their Noses, LDU Quito Advance.

By: Mauro | September 19th, 2008

The South American champion, LDU Quito pulled out a close one last night when they faced Bolivian side Bolivar in the Estadio Hernando Siles in La Paz, a stadium famous for the high altitude advantage the home side has when playing here. But high altitude advantage or not, Bolivar meant business tonight and caught the Ecuadorian squad on their heels.

Right out of the gates and to the surprise of the entire stadium and people watching on TV, Bolivar went up on LDU Quito only 40 seconds in. After a cross from the left, Daner Pachi, unmarked, meets the ball near the penalty spot, slides to try to take a shot, but Chilean striker Renato Ramos arrives at the same spot. Pachi’s shot goes off Ramos’ arm. As it falls from Ramos’ arm, amidst the confusion and all the LDU defenders flat-footed, he has room to take a shot and does. LDU keeper, José Cevallos has no fault here as three or four of his defenders are all standing just inside the six yard box watching. 1-0 to Bolivar.

A few moments later, off a free kick taken by Bolivar, central defender Emilio Martinez beats his marker and gets just enough of his head on it to deflect it toward goal. And to the surprise of the entire stadium and LDU Quito defenders, the ball goes into the net past Cevallos again. 2-0 to Bolivar and the 10,000 or so that were in attendance lose their fucking minds.

Having caught the LDU defense on their heels, in five minutes Bolivar went from having one foot out of the Sudamericana to advancing to the next round. Since they had two away goals from the first leg, those two CRUCIAL goals were qualifying them for a date with Boca Juniors in the Round of 16. If only they could keep the lead for the next 85 minutes of the match.

Bolivar had begun playing some really attractive football, LDU players seemed more interested in complaining to the ref, especially when Argentine defender Nahuel Fioretto took down an LDU player in the penalty area. At this point, LDU seemed to create danger on Bolivar keeper, Carlos Arias, only when they had a free kick nearby.

Near the end of the first half, Arnulfo and his strike partner Ramos came close to Bolivar’s third goal, a goal that would have qualified them into the next round without question.

The second half gave way to a less exciting match. My guess is that LDU wanted to get the match under control defensively and Bolivar wanted to keep LDU from gaining ground on them so they didn’t take many risks going forward as strongly as they had in the first half.

Around the middle of the second half, both teams begin coming forward and the match got entertaining. It was at about this time that Reinaldo Navia was able to find the net for LDU.

In the 64th minute, off a one-two pass with a teammate, he found himself unmarked just above the half circle and took a fantastic shot that went in after hitting the crossbar. Arias was helpless to keep it out. 2-1 to Bolivar.

With this goal, LDU qualifies on aggregate, something every Bolivar player was well aware of because it was like they had lost all motivation to look for winning goal. It’s a shame, they had enough time to score one more but the blow from the LDU goal seemed to be too much.

LDU dominated play until almost the very end of the second half. But even so, Bolivar still had a few opportunities from Ramos and Valentierra and while the LDU defenders didn’t step up and challenge Bolivar’s strikers, Cevallos was money. Bolivar was unable to score again and the match ended 2-1 to Bolivar.

I had this match going 1-1. I wasn’t far off. I would never have known that a substitute defense coached by a former defender would have played so poor. Bolivar’s strikers waltzed in to the LDU penalty area at will making for a long night for Cevallos. LDU is through to the next round where they’ll meet Boca Juniors for a spot in the quarters. Like it or not.

Feel free to check the CONMEBOL website for results and information about upcoming matches and for those of you in need of a bracket to get your heads around the competition, get one here.