Chivas Manage to Squeak Past Aragua Into the Round of 16.

By: Mauro | September 18th, 2008

Now some people may think that I may have been rough on these two squads but the match was not terribly good at all. To be fair, I only truly watched the second half and picked up the first half info from match reports which I heard was worse than the second, but still, I can’t help but wish I had those 45 minutes of my life back.

While Aragua is not one of the best sides in South America, they really took this match to the Mexicans. But only until Sergio Santana scored for the home side. Off a cross from Marco de la Mora, Santana was able to get a head on it and slot it past Aragua keeper Agustín Vistarop. 1-0 to Chivas.

Now this is where the match started to get bad. With the goal against them, Aragua closed themselves up at the back and Chivas seemed happy with the 1-0 result so neither team did anything to grace themselves with glory until near the end of the first half where David de Souza had a chance to score but was unable to hit paydirt.

De Souza picked up in the second half where he had left off in the first. With a long range shot, he almost caught Chivas keeper Sergio Rodriguez by surprise and Francisco Fajardo was able to have a second attempt with his heel but Rodriguez was quick to save on the second chance and kept his team in it.

Shortly afterward, Heatkliff Castillo, was taken down in the area and Aragua was awarded a penalty kick. Castillo did the honors and it was 1-1 where it stayed until the end of the match. Aragua was more interested in winning the match in the final minutes but lack of goal scoring prowess kept them from continuing on in this tournament.

Final Score: 1-1.

I had this one going 1-0 to Chivas, which I had until Chivas started to play really poorly. They face Atlético Paranaense in the Round of 16. Paranaense qualified over São Paulo, eliminating the 2007 Brasileirao champs in a penalty shoot out.

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.