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Copa Sudamericana: Uruguay's Defensor come from behind to knock out Danubio [Fri Aug 26th, 2005]
Defensor Sporting came from behind to defeat Danubio 3-1 in an all-Uruguayan clash and book their ticket to the next round of the Copa Sudamericana.
Last week Danubio beat Defensor 3-2 away from home and after they took the lead in the return leg, it looked that they would certainly qualify for the next round, but this wasn’t to be as Defensor turned around the result under terrible conditions in Montevideo.
Danubio took the lead in the 7th minute when Juan Salgueiro’s shot from the corner of the box took a wild deflection off a Defensor defender and flew over goalkeeper Juan Castillo, who was off his line.
In the 21st minute, the match was stopped after a power failure due to the bad weather - with heavy rain, strong winds and lightning.
When play resumed, Danubio seemed to have lost the offensive hunger that they demonstrated in the first twenty minutes of the match, and Defensor looked to capitalise on this and came close to scoring when a Sebastian Taborda header came off the crossbar after a cross from Fernando Fajardo.
In the 29th minute Defensor’s good work paid off, as Nelson Semperena’s shot from just outside the box after a corner kick deflected off a Danubio player and fooled Castillo to make the score 1-1.
In the second half Defensor piled on the attack, as they still needed two goals to continue in the tournament. In the 63rd minute Sebastian Taborda’s header was saved off the line after a corner, but Maximiliano Pereira sneaked in to tap the ball home from close range to make the score 2-1 in Defensor’s favour.
Just one minute later, Defensor scored a much-needed third after a good individual goal by striker Sebastian Taborda. Fajardo crossed a good ball into the box that Taborda controlled well with his chest, side-footed through Danubio defender Cafu Barbosa and shot well into the near post.
Defensor continued to attack and came close to adding to the score as Alvaro Navarro and Taborda’s shots came off the crossbar.
In the last few minutes, Danubio were left with just eight men on the field after Walter Gargano, Pablo Melo and captain Omar Pouso were all red-carded.
Defensor face Paraguay’s Cerro Porteno in the next round of the competition next week.
Other Results:
Cerro Porteno 1-2 Guarani (agg.2-2) Cerro Porteno won 4-3 on penalties.
Atletico Nacional 2-0 Deportivo Cali (agg.2-2) Atletico Nacional won 7-6 on penalties.
Gregory Sica
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