April 18, 2021 – 6:28 p.m.
for:
Elpais.com.co
The devil knows better by old man than by devil. This is the saying that America must have clung to this week, to put aside the criticism and achieve the first of its goals in the semester: to get into the top eight of the tournament.
Because if Juan Cruz Real’s team has proven anything, it’s that the worst thing their rivals – and also their critics – can do is take him for granted when he still has options to fight.
It happened last year, when no one bet a penny for a plant that ended up winning the star fifteen, and it happened this Sunday, when, effectively and calmly, the reds beat 2-0 to the encopetado and seemingly dangerous Tolima, to keep the last ticket available to play in the playoffs.
With an offensive payroll, but without his goal scorer Adrián Ramos, who is still recovering from his discomfort, America played a practical football to beat the pijaos, who had still qualified for the Easter.
Nacional, Santa Fe, Milionaris, Esportiu Cali, Equitat and Junior complete the group of classified.
The Scarlets opened the game very early, in the eighth minute, when Julián Quiñones scored in his own goal after unsuccessfully rejecting a cross from Duván Vergara, one of the highlights of the match.
America won, but played with a sense in the cold Manizales, where Medellin, its direct rival in the fight to qualify, had not yet begun to play against the Eleven Caldas due to heavy rains falling on the Palogrande stadium .
But that did not put uneasy to those of Juan Cruz Real, that in the complement to be intelligent closing spaces to the rival and obtaining the second goal to the 81, when Vergara shot the archer Alvaro Montero after a bad exit of the tolimenses.
With 2-0, America managed the final minutes, confident that the result in the Caldes capital was not going to move against him. And that was what happened, because Medellin needed to score three goals to get the ticket, but ended up falling 2-0.
The devil knows better by old man than by devil, repeats America, that in the end, he does feel confident.