Chivas Play Their Hearts Out But Fail to Score.

By: Mauro | November 13th, 2008

With almost full strength sides, both Chivas and Inter came out to win in tonight’s match. But it was Inter who came on like gangbusters in this first leg of the Semi-finals and got a surprising result, one that I was surely wasn’t expecting. But, as usual, Chivas did not go down without putting up a hell of a fight. As it turned out, this turned out to be the battle of near misses.

Early on in the first half, Chivas dominated play while Inter seemed lost and unable to settle into the pitch at the Estadio Jalisco. Inter played a modest formation at first, hoping to hit pay dirt on a counterattack, so as you can imagine, this gave Chivas plenty of space to work, something they took full advantage of against River.

But while Chivas did dominate, they did not arrive at the front door of goal guarded by Inter keeper Lauro. In fact, it was Inter who were the first to create the first near miss. Using Nilmar’s breakneck speed, who was stymied by a great save on the part of Chivas keeper, Victor Hernández. It took almost half an hour for Chivas to come knocking at Lauro’s door, when Omar Arellano (who else?) was left alone with nothing between him and the net only for him to strike it wide.

Near the end of the first half, Alex had another close call off a free kick but nothing came of it since Hernández was able to keep it out. Moments later Alex and Nilmar combined on a wonderful play and again Hernández came up big.

Before the end of the half, controversy reared it’s ugly head when referee Carlos Torres whistled a foul near the Inter penalty area and then ended the half without allowing Chivas to take the kick.

In the second half, Chivas’ poor defensive marking began to show. Without their star defender and national team player, Johnny Magallón, Chivas gave up two early opportunities one to Magrao just five minutes in and the other to Nilmar only one minute later.

But not to be outdone, on the other end, Arellano wasted another chance to get his boys on the scoresheet, something that we would get accustomed to seeing in this match.

But only moments after this, off a great pass by Magrao – who came up big along with Alex and we hardly missed D’Alessandro – Nilmar was able to finally break the deadlock. He went wide left and juked Héctor Reynoso who ended up giving Nilmar just a few inches and the Brazilian didn’t hesitate. He got off a monster of a left-footed shot that beat Hernández and gave his side the lead and the all important away goal. 1-0 to Inter.

With the goal the match got exciting. Lots of back and forth, both sides had plenty of opportunities to get to the other’s penalty area with the only difference being that Chivas let all of their’s slip away. Arellano had a clear header, unhindered by a defensive marker and sent it over the crossbar. Five minutes later, Sergio Santana had a chance to score but couldn’t get a shot off.

But only 10 minutes after scoring the first, the Brazilian side extended their lead. Off a free kick just outside the penalty area, Alex buried the ball in the goal past an unbelieving Hernández. The kick was a spectacular bending shot, take a look, Brazilian national team here he comes 2-0 to Inter.

The match played itself out much as it did in the beginning, with Inter defending with remarkable solvency and Chivas trying to keep possession and make something happen. At the end of the night though, Inter had just a bit more luck with their opportunities than their opponents and that, I believe, was the big difference. Because if we counted up all the goals Chivas missed, they could have easily have won this match.

Final Score: 2-0 to Sport Club Internaciónal. One foot in the final.

I had this match going 2-1 to the home side. I figured Chivas would give up at least one goal but expected them to score two, despite Inter’s very good and organized defense. Instead the story is turned on it’s head and Inter were the one’s keeping the clean sheet for their keeper and scoring on more than one occasion.

This result leaves Chivas with a pretty cold, hard uphill battle for the second leg in Porto Alegre. But they will have one advantage in that match, Alex will not be available. National team coach Dunga called him up for the friendly against Portugal and Inter will have to do without him. We can expect to see D’Alessandro back in action by then to see if he can make up for Alex’s absence.

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 an updated one here.