Seba Verón celebrates with goalscorer Lentini
Two matches were taking place simultaneously with potentially enormous consequences for HEGS this year. In one, Estudiantes de La Plata had the second leg of their Copa Libertadores qualifier against Sporting Cristal of Peru, having lost the first 2-1 in Lima. In the other, Argentina’s Under 20s had to beat their cross-river rivals from Uruguay to get things back on track in the Sudamericano Sub 20… but lost 2-1. It’s going to take a big turnaround if they’re to make it to Egypt to defend the World Youth Cup the previous generation won in Canada in 2006.
After losing the first leg of their qualifier 2-1, Estudiantes knew a 1-0 victory would be enough to see them squeak through to the Copa Libertadores group phase on away goals, and that was precisely what they got after an iffy performance, thanks to a header from Ramón Lentini with fifteen minutes to go. They’d started strongly in the first half, having a clear penalty turned down on the quarter-hour mark, but had slipped into a long ball game without too many ideas long before the breakthrough finally came.
Estudiantes will now join the Copa in Group 5, along with Cruzeiro of Brazil, Ecuadorean champions Deportivo Quito and Universitario de Sucre, of Bolivia. They’ll need to outdo tonight’s performance, especially given the high altitude away games in that group, but the nerves of the qualifiers are now behind them, at least.
Sergio Batista’s youngsters can only dream of such a situation. Having scraped through to the final group of six in the Sudamericano Sub 20 in Venezuela with a string of underwhelming performances, they’d already drawn one and lost of their final stage matches before they met Uruguay at almost the same time as that Estudiantes match. The top four teams qualify for Egypt, but Argentina are bottom tonight after another loss, to their bitter local rivals.
Argentina waited more than half an hour before they even managed a shot on the Uruguayan goal, and that came when Juan Neira ran forward and sent in a long-range blast which went well over. It was small consolation that Uruguay – up til now the most impressive side in the competition – didn’t look much better in the first half.
Nine minutes into the second, Cristián Gaitán committed his second yellow card offence of the night, an unnecessary foul in the midfield, and Argentina were down to ten men. In the 71st minute, Jonathan Urretaviscaya gave the Charrúa the lead, and it was doubled just five minutes later as Argentina were caught on the counter, with Abel Hernández finishing off the move. A consolation from Eduardo Salvio with six minutes left gave some fleeting hope, but it was never realised. Argentina have it all to do if they’re going to make it to Egypt to defend their title.
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