River Off to a Good Start.

By: Mauro | July 30th, 2008

After 90 minutes that had a little bit of everything the local side seemed to have more luck than the visitors. River Plate hosted Universidad Católica at the Centenario Stadium in Montevideo in a match that was a tale of two halves.

The match started as expected. Católica holding back, defending with 9-10 men behind the ball and River coming forward with everything. They came forward and played a very fast, explosive attacking style.

Católica performed basically the way they have been which is pretty much why they deserve their poor standing in the Chilean league. They played a decidedly slower paced match and were more organized but still did not manage to create any danger at the River Plate penalty area.

Still, the River Plate offense played faster than they could finish and failed to have the cool heads to finish the many plays they created.

With the match mostly on the Chilean end of the pitch, it was only a matter of time before the ball ended up in the Chilean goal. In the 44th minute, Sergio Souza scored for River Plate off one of their many fantastic plays with a slight deflection from a defender. With this goal, Souza makes it 14 in his last 20 matches. 1-0 to River Plate.

Like I said before, the second half was a lot different. Católica came out on the pitch a goal down and needed to find a tying goal to bring them level. And they did give it their damndest. So much so that they had many opportunities to score but couldn’t quite bury the ball where they needed to and even had a ball cleared off the line by River player, José Rodriguez. But while they came forward wildly and without much organization they had a mishap from their keeper that pretty much ended their surge.

In the 75th minute, José Maria Buljubasich cleared a ball poorly and it was nowhere near his defenders and it landed at the feet of the very man who denied Católica a goal earlier, José Rodriguez. He lobbed the ball over the head of the keeper who was way off his line. With the goal coming during Católica’s best moment, their momentum was destroyed and they never quite recovered.

The match ended 2-0 to River Plate.

I had this one ending in a draw. Unlike River, I started this competition off on the wrong foot. River Plate had more luck than Católica last night and was able to celebrate in front of their 5,000 fans present at the Centenario.

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, here it is.