Huracán drew this Thursday without goals against Sporting Cristal, at home, and must define their qualification for the group stage of the Copa Libertadores next week in Peru.
For the first leg of Phase 3, Diego Dabove’s team played a good first half with several goal situations, but it was not enough to get the advantage at the Tomás Adolfo Ducó stadium.
The return will be next Thursday at 9:00 p.m. in Lima and the “Globo” will need to win or keep zero to avoid the penalty shootout.
Hurricane left applauded but with a bitter taste for not having been able to break zero.
The winner of the series will enter the group stage of the Copa Libertadores de América and will receive a prize of three million dollars.
The loser, meanwhile, will play the Copa Sudamericana and receive 900,000 dollars.
After passing Boston River, from Uruguay, a rookie rival in the competition, in Phase 2, Hurricane found a tougher adversary whose main objective is to be one of the 32 of the Libertadores.
The “Globo” is undefeated in 2023 but has already begun to feel the string of triple competition that required him to play ten games (same number of wins and draws) in just over a month.
After Sunday’s classic against San Lorenzo (1-1), Dabove only made two changes to the lineup but ended up taking out the main players in the second half due to fatigue.
Huracán had a hard time starting the game because in the first ten minutes Sporting Cristal took possession of the ball and warned with two shots from outside the area, one deflected from Jesús Pretell and another from Jostin Alarcón who demanded Lucas Chaves.
After that start with some doubts, “Globo” took over the process of the match and cornered the Peruvian team in their field.
Diego Dabove’s team chose to attack on the wings with the rise of full-backs Guillermo Soto on the right and Guillermo Benítez on the left.
Thus it was that dangerous occasions arrived for the local that had it several times with the skilled Juan Gauto and with Nicolás Cordero.
On the 9th of Huracán he had the two clearest with two headers that made goalkeeper Renato Solís shine.
Huracán pressed until the end of the first half but between the ineffectiveness in the finish and the saves by Solís, he wasted his best moment in the first half.
Near the end, at 46′, the Uruguayan referee Andrés Matonte awarded a penalty for an alleged handball by Jhilmar Lora but the VAR, in charge of his compatriot Andrés Cunha, called him and reversed his decision since the ball hit him on the visiting defender’s chest.
The referee’s setback upset Huracán, who felt that the penalty could have been the key to open a complicated match.
The rhythm of those 30 minutes of the first half could not be repeated in the second half and as the minutes passed, Sporting Cristal also began to settle in defense and also cling to the tie.
Huracán did not have fluidity and his legs began to feel heavy due to the string of matches.
Dabove moved the entire attack front with the arrivals of Juan García, Juan Garro, Lucas “Para” Castro and Valentín Burgoa but they failed to change the course of the game.
In the last play of the game, Cordero, one of the best along with Federico Fattori, had victory in his head again but a Peruvian defender took it over the line.
The “Globo” will have to go to win in Lima to access the group stage of the Copa Libertadores and will have to improve the definition to take advantage of the chances it may have against a rival that in its last presentation thrashed and scored five against Nacional, from Paraguay.
In the middle, surely with an alternative team, the Parque de los Patricios team will play on Sunday in La Plata against Estudiantes in the debut of a former player and DT like Eduardo Domínguez on the opposite sidewalk.
