The Argentine Bautista Merlini scored the goal for his team, the Paraguayan Libertad, in the 1-1 draw against the Bolivian The Strongest at the Hernando Siles stadium in La Paz, in one of the opening matches of group B of the Copa Libertadores .
The series also made up of the Brazilian Paranaense and the Venezuelan Caracas have the four teams with one point after also registering a goalless draw between those two teams last Tuesday.
The goals were conquests by Enrique Triverio in the 11th minute for Tigre and equality for Gumarelo came thanks to Merlini in the 14th minute.
In the first minutes, the game was locked and with both teams looking to seize control of the half of the field.
A foul by Henry Vaca of The Strongest on Mathías Espinoza resulted in the injury of the latter who was substituted and the yellow card for the local team player by the Chilean judge Nicolás Gamboa.
In the 11th minute, a defensive error after a lateral kick by Libertad led to a play taken advantage of by Triverio that opened the account for the Bolivian Tigre.
However, the joy did not last long as three minutes later Merlini hit a header after an overflow from the left to decree equality in the 3,650 meters of altitude of La Paz.
Then the game was played in the middle of the field, with The Strongest having more possession of the ball and with Libertad well standing.
In the second half, the pressure from The Strongest for several minutes was suffocating, mainly with mid-distance shots from Argentina’s Luciano Ursino and Bolivia’s Fernando Saucedo.
However, Libertad’s defense did not give in to the insistence of a rival who had their clearest chance at the last minute with a header from Colombian Jair Reinoso that hit the crossbar.
Next week The Strongest will visit Atlético Paranaense and Libertad will host Venezuelan Caracas.
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