An Epic Final Match in Rio de Janeiro.

By: Mauro | July 3rd, 2008

Another unbelievable match took place last night in Rio’s giant Maracaná Stadium. We were witness to an amazing spectacle that offered, again, a bit of everything. I don’t think I’m the first to say that the teams had a bit of a role reversal with respect to the final last week in Quito.

The Maracaná was packed, not another soul could fit in the stadium. Pelé and Brazil’s president Lula da Silva were expressly asked not to attend as they are rumored to be bad luck for Brazilian sides of late. There was a fantastic light show among the crowd with red, green and white flares and plenty of flags and noise to go along with it. Along with the flares comes a lot of smoke so the match was delayed because of visibility issues. But the delay was extended to about ten minutes or so because of a group of photographers refused to move back into their designated areas.

Once the match started, Fluminense established possession and ownership of the ball from the get go but their defense failed to settle in before Joffre Guerrón picked up where he had left off with his terrorizing of Junior Cesar in the first leg. He gained possession on the right and ran deep toward the touch line. He faked left and right and left and right, seemed to lose the ball and then regain it and before Flu could cover, Guerrón delivered a great pass between Luis Alberto and Thiago Silva for Luís Bolaños to drive home. 1-0 to LDU, 5-2 on aggregate and silence fell over the full Maracaná like someone was playing an awful joke on them.

Early on and with very little effort, LDU extended their lead and thoughts of another bloodletting danced in my head. But this was not the case. Fluminense leaned forward and took the game to an LDU side that seemed more opportunistic and more apt to lean on the fine lead they had carved out for themselves so far. But with LDU conceding the ball, space and pitch, Fluminense staged an all out assault on the LDU penalty area in search of a goal that could signal a comeback of epic proportions.

LDU’s lead only lasted six minutes despite playing a willful defensive posture. Thiago Neves received the ball way outside the area, squares his body to the goal and takes a long shot that goes into the side netting past a slow to respond José Cevallos. 1-1. Now we have a match. 3-5 on aggregate.

Flu was unrelenting in what remained of the first half. So much so, that they managed to turn the match around on the Ecuadorian side and on surprise play, Cícero received the ball on the backside of the defense and one time crossed it into the center of the penalty area to find Thiago Neves streaking past LDU midfielder Paul Ambrosi placing the ball into the back of the net. 2-1 to Fluminense at the end of the second half. 4-5 on aggregate. And the comeback was on.

With Ygor coming off for the second half, making way for Dodo off the bench, Cícero moved back to cover the left side of midfield. And with that, Flu continued their possession/ownership of the match, playing the ball wide looking for Cícero on the left and either Thiago Neves or Gabriel on the right. Also, taking advantage of their speed, the fullbacks, Thiago Silva and Junior Cesar, stormed forward to overlap with their midfielders. Thiago Neves seemed to play where he wanted and was just a nightmare for LDU. As a result of their labor, only seven minutes later, Dodo had a nice shot that beat Cevallos but went off the post.

In the 56th minute, Thiago Neves is taken down just outside the penalty area and wins a free kick for his team. Thiago Neves steps up to take it and shoots it past Cevallos who dives to cover the open net a step too late. 3-1 to Flu, the stadium erupts, tears stream down their fans’ faces and we’ve just witnessed a team come back from the dead. 5-5 on aggregate. In the words of Alex Ferguson, “It’s squeaky bum time.”

With this prospect in front of them, LDU coach Edgardo Bauza orders his squad to advance their lines forward and play a touch more offensively. And they did. For their efforts they were able to get the ball to Bieler who had his shot beat Fernando Henrique but go out off the post.

At this point the match became much more about Flu creating plays and chances and LDU destroying and trying to break up their opponents game. As a result, LDU is far more physical. In my opinion, Campos should have been sent off in the 73rd after taking down Dodo, he didn’t even get a yellow. LDU played a far more counterattacking role in the match with the ball only advancing to the final third of the pitch when it touched the feet of either Guerrón or Bolaños.

Here’s how good Thiago Neves is. He knew the marking was heavy on him and that receiving the ball in the midfield was becoming difficult so he moved slightly forward, just enough to allow Dario Conca to receive the ball on his own giving him the time to be able to turn and distribute the ball to either Washington or Dodo.

With extra time looming on the horizon and all their players coming forward at the stingy LDU squad, Junior Cesar explodes up the left and sends in a long cross that Thiago Neves gets a good head on but it crashes right into Washington and goes out of bounds. At this point, the players look exhausted and their feet are dragging as time goes on, it appears that the those that are still standing will win.

Damián Manso comes off the pitch due to an injury and this is the end for LDU in an offensive sense, in my opinion. This forced Bolaños to have to come and cover Manso’s position and William Araujo to cover for Bolaños on the left. Araujo, played a much more defensive posture and LDU was contained far easier as their only outlet of danger was Guerrón on the right. Despite this Guerrón was still able to streak past Junior with ease but failed to connect with anyone else on his team.

Extra time began where regulation ended. More Flu possession and LDU faking like they wanted to come forward but never did wholeheartedly. Still a few important things happened.

Bieler got the cup winning goal in the 26th minute of the second half of extra time but the goal was disallowed due to an wrongly called offside. The LDU bench exploded and the fourth ref probably got an earful.

Then, a few moments later, Luis Alberto was sent off for taking down Guerrón, keeping him from scoring what would have been the cup winning goal. If there was ever a time to be sent off for a foul like this, this was the time. Not a bad decision by Luis Alberto.

Now, I usually hate when matches go to penalties but in this case, neither team could beat the other and this seemed the only way to find a winner. The players were worn down and they had played a hell of a 1st and 2nd leg at a high level.

Both keepers performed fantastically on the penalty kicks. Obviously more so Cevallos who was able to keep out three penalties. Cevallos finally won the cup that eluded him so many years ago with Barcelona de Guayaquil. At 37 years old, he is South America’s best goal keeper based on this tournament.

The man of the match? For me, it’s a tie between José Cevallos, the undisputed hero on the night, and Thiago Neves who made the match as exciting and nail-biting as it was. He was fantastic and I sympathize with the defenses that have to face him, either in South America or in Europe. He was a monster last night.

I had this match going to LDU expecting that wonderful football they played in the first half of the first leg but it went another way.

With all this said, one fact remains.

Liga Deportiva Universitaria de Quito are the new Copa Libertadores Champions.

And again, a Brazilian team is unable to win the Libertadores in the Maracaná.

My parting thought is that, fortunately, it has been a great pleasure of mine to be able to provide for you a good platform and sometimes great resource for information (with a bit of my own spin).

Congrats Liga, congrats Ecuador on winning your very first major footballing title and please try to keep the rest of these boys together so that you can represent the South American continent in Japan at the end of the year with the great amount of dignity it deserves.

VIVA LA COPA LIBERTADORES DE AMÉRICA!!!!!