History Made in Concepción, Chile.

By: Mauro | September 5th, 2008

In what was the most important match in the history of both sides, the home side dug deep and gave their fans something to celebrate about for the next few years.

Despite almost completely dominating the first half, Ñublense kept most of the possession with Sport Áncash making a run at goal here and there, Germán Carty led the charge, but mostly neither side seriously threatened the other’s goal.

Ñublense’s Fernando Martel owned the left side of the pitch, when he wanted, the Chileans were able to arrive at the Peruvians penalty area with relative ease. The problem was that Argentine striker, Bruno Martelotto is either a crap finisher or was totally off his game.

Some of Áncash’s players were set on stopping the opposition at all costs and three of them earned themselves yellows before the end of the first half to add to their lack of shots on goal.

If Ñublense was dominating in the first half, they owned the second half. They doubled their production in the second half with 13 shots (6 on goal). Still, the man of the match so far, in my opinion, was a man with a name Wayne Newton would have killed for, Áncash keeper, Johnny Vegas.

The last ten minutes of the match were more exciting than the rest of the match. Ñublense fought and attacked and attacked, and when it appeared the match would end in a 0-0 draw, Johnny Vegas made his first and only mistake of the match. Four minutes into stoppage time, he met Ñublense striker Fernando Lopez, at the edge of the 6-yard box taking him down before he could get a shot off.

Like in the vid, Luis Flores took the penalty shot and Vegas dove to his right and met the shot but only got a hand on it sending it towards the crossbar where it rebounded back towards the hoard of players storming into the penalty area. Alejandro Osorio beat his defender to the ball on the left edge of the area while heading the ball into the net beating Vegas for the lead, late (really f-ing late!) in the match, setting off the celebration in Chillán tonight.

While the broadcasters had match winning goalscorer Osorio as the man of the match, I’m choosing goal keeper Johnny Vegas as my man of the match. If it wasn’t for his great reflexes and his excellent decisions under the three posts, Áncash would have lost this one by a wider margin.

I had this match going 2-0 to Ñublense. Not a bad guess by me, I guess the little break from covering the tournament these last two weeks didn’t break my streak!! Whoo!!

In the meantime, 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.