Four Brazilian clubs were dumped out of the Copa Libertadores in spectacular fashion last night. Going into the evening’s games, only Grêmio had a difficult first leg score to overturn. Internacional lost 2-1 (3-2 agg) at home to Peí±arol, Cruzeiro lost 2-0 (3-2 on agg) at home to Once Caldas and Fluminense were humiliated 3-0 (4-3 agg) against Libertad in Paraguay. Grêmio lost their away match against Universidad Católica from Chile 1-0 and 3-1 on aggregate.
Fluminense were an absolute joke and fully deserved their defeat. Grêmio just aren’t good enough but the real shocks were Internacional and Cruzeiro. These two teams were two of the strongest in the group stages and set up their home ties nicely with good results away from home in the first leg. Internacional, are, of course, the reigning Libertadores Champions. They sacked their coach Celso Roth, who won that competition last year, after a few bad results in the State Championships. That just makes absolutely no sense to me. Who cares about the State Championships? What matters is the Libertadores… Thanks to fan pressure they replaced him with club idol Falcão. Looked how that’s worked out….
Unfortunately in São Paulo we don’t get many games from the other states so I missed both of these matches and can’t explain what happened. Nerves? Lack of experience or concentration? Probably both. All I can say is that Denis you are right: Cuca is a disgrace. The Cruzeiro coach was caught on camera elbowing a Once Caldas player in the face. The player’s nose was bleeding thanks to that yet after the game Cuca accused him of diving and time wasting. Sack him. Ban him. Throw him in jail. Disgraceful. Of course, Conmebol is a joke and as usual, won’t do a thing. Neither will the Cruzeiro management. What next? Muricy urinating on the advertising boards and it was an accident? Neymar shooting the referee and Conmebol will ‘look into it’? It’s a disgrace. Following the scenes in Argentina weeks ago and now this, they may as well rename the competition the Copa it’s a disgrace Libertadores.