From the hand of midfielder Rafael Carrascal and striker Michael Rangel, América de Cali regained its place among the greats of Colombian football. The team of the Brazilian coach Alexandre Guimaraes defeated this Saturday 2-0 the young Barranquilla in the second leg of the grand final, surrounded by a fans thirsty for titles that turned the Pascual Guerrero stadium into an impregnable cauldron. The popular scarlet team thus achieves the fourteenth league of its record, the first since it returned three years ago to the top flight after a traumatic passage through the second division.
In an intense and entertaining game, with Carrascal as the owner of the midfield threads, América imposed their fast transitions before the sterile possession of the ball by Junior, forced to play far from the net of Neto Volpi. The Red Devils stopped the hegemony of the great Caribbean team, which thanks to the saves by Sebastián Viera and the goals of Teófilo Gutiérrez had won the two most recent finals of Colombian football and was aiming for the three-time championship.
After having obtained a valuable goalless draw in the first leg at the Metropolitano de Barranquilla, América scored the first goal of the series before 20 minutes with a furious header from Rangel that crashed off the crossbar. The kickback bounce hit Viera’s back before landing at the back of the arc. Although the images showed an own goal by the Uruguayan goalkeeper, referee Wílmar Roldán scored it for Rangel. The gunner, the great figure of the scarlet team, arrived as a reinforcement precisely from Junior and thanks to that goal he was crowned the tournament’s top scorer with 14 goals, one above the Argentine German Cano, from Medellín.
America extended the lead to half an hour into play in another quick foray, when midfielder Carlos Sierra holed a death pass from winger Edwin Velasco into the small area. When the first half was not yet exhausted, the ball ended up inside Volpi’s goal, after a spectacular action in which the Brazilian goalkeeper crashed into his defense. However, the play was annulled after the revision of the VAR, which premiered in the Colombian league. The scoreboard no longer moved despite the insistence of Junior, who played the last ten minutes with ten men for the expulsion of Marlon Piedrahita, and dangerous local counterattacks.
???????????? This afternoon, we achieved a categorical victory with which we confirmed that we were the best team in the championship. IT’S TIME TO CELEBRATE THE 14TH, SCARLET SWELLING! ⭐????#We are scarlet ????⚪ pic.twitter.com/Sly7Gi0xHM
– America from Cali (@AmericadeCali) December 7, 2019
America, which suffered five long years in the second division, is also a historic one on the continent. His first local title in 11 years marks the return in 2020 to the Copa Libertadores, a tournament in which he had outstanding participations that could never crystallize with a championship, as he lost four finals between 1985 and 1996. América, Junior, Tolima and Medellín They will be the Colombian representatives in the Libertadores, while Nacional de Medellín, Cali, Millonarios and Deportivo Pasto will play the Suramericana.
Guimaraes, a former coach of Costa Rica, is the first Brazilian strategist to win a title in Colombian soccer. Throughout the campaign he built a solid team, with the security of his compatriot Volpi in goal, a midfield in which the trident composed of Carrascal, Sierra and Luis Paz stood out, and an attack in which Rangel shone.
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