Olimpia Limps Into Their 2nd Leg Clash With La Católica.

By: Mauro | September 17th, 2008

Club Olimpia vs. Club Deportivo Universidad Católica (Estadio Manuel Ferreira “El Bosque de Para Uno”, Asunción, Paraguay)

Tape Delay @ 12:30am PST on Fox Sports Español. Match starts LIVE at 3:20pm PST. Gamecast here. Online TV here.

Olimpia face an enormous uphill battle after being humiliated by Chilean side Universidad Católica nearly three weeks ago in a 4-0 romp. It was such a beating that coach Gustavo Costas (taking a beating in all of South America, his time with Racing Club in Argentina was a blight on that team’s history) quit shortly after and it had announcers denouncing the team as a Paraguayan side because of their lack of heart in that match.

While Olimpia wasn’t even a shadow of themselves in that match, in the lead up to it, Católica had been sucking some serious ass of it’s own. They had been playing irregularly and that match was a positive step in what could be their ticket into the next round. (I’ve attached the highlights from that match below since I didn’t cover that match when it happened.)

If their last Sudamericana match was any indication of what would happen in this one, look for Milovan Mirosevic, Rodrigo Valenzuela and Luís Nuñez to hook up again and torture the Paraguayan’s defense. But since the first leg, they have had a spell of bad luck. Their irregularity reared it’s ugly head again. They’ve lost consecutive matches, 1-3 to Cobresal this past weekend and 2-4 to Audax Italiano the week before.

Olimpia have to do the impossible and win 5-0 to advance directly or 4-0 to force penalties. Católica can do what América de Cali did last night and sit back and wait to see what kind of match Olimpia is going to make of this one, rather than expend too much energy and resources on trying to beat them.

New Olimpia coach (and ex-Olimpia keeper) Ever Almeida, has his work cut out for him. I honestly can’t see him expecting much out of this match. My guess is he will most likely try to field the best side he can and treat this match as another chance to inject his philosophy onto the team. Whatever he gets out of this one is all gravy, especially since he’s got a loss, a win and a draw in his first three matches.

Bottom Line: I think this match will be much more evenly matched that the last time these two met. Olimpia are not on a tear by any means, but they are definitely on the upswing. As far as La Católica are concerned, it’s a crapshoot as to which team will show up. Still, they do have quite a bit of momentum with the four goals in their pocket.

My Pick: 2-0 to Olimpia. Católica will not show up to play, not because they have hit a crap spot on their form but because 4 goals is a HUGE lead and can unmotivate anyone. Also, it’s a nice win for Olimpia to have as they will gain a bit of confidence towards getting back on track.

The winner of this one faces Internacional de Porto Alegre in the Round of 16.

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.