Antuna's insistence on the band and Cota's mistake, who went from hero to villain, gave La Maquina the ticket.
In a long-suffering and dramatic way, Cruz Azul defeated León in the second match of the Liga MX Apertura 2022 reclassification day to settle in the Quarterfinals.
Even though La Maquina and La Fiera played the pass, the momentum of the previous one remained in the dressing rooms of the Azteca Stadium since the most dangerous actions ended in deflected shots and few emotions during the first half.
Leon was practically missing in front except for a failed scissors attempt by Lucas Di Yorio; while Cruz Azul tried to open the scoring, their forwards were weak in the definition.
Uriel Antuna, who, in 10 minutes, had two opportunities in front of Rodolfo Cota's goal, but in both cases, he rushed to finish off from first badly.
Near the end, Cota blocked Gonzalo Carneiro's shot from point-blank range after a series of rebounds in the area, which could have meant the night's first goal. Later, the Uruguayan scored after a pass from Antuna, but clearly out of place.
La Maquina began to fuel up for the second half when at 7 minutes, Rodrigo Huescas joined Carneiro to finish first over the Cota crossbar.
Cruz Azul came on top, and the local annotation seemed imminent after the goalkeeper from León was required on two consecutive occasions; moments later, Antuna fired from the sideline, and the ball deflected off Carneiro's face to beat Cota. But a misplaced 'Brujo' threw back the score.
However, Antuna did not take long to overflow once more, and when trying to cut Cota's serve, he left the ball dead for Jose Rivero to arrive, who only had to push it to make it 1-0.
In the throes of the match, Antuna had one more down the right wing, where he cut inside twice and shot looking for the far post, where the ball crashed and went out to his misfortune. And in compensation time, the referee did not mark two clear penalties; first in favour of Cruz Azul after a stomp on Estada in the area and moments later in favour of Leon due to a Huescas hand.
Login To Leave a Comment