Murilo and Flaco López scored the goals; victory leaves Abel Ferreira’s team in first place in Group F
Palmeiras sweated a lot, insisted and suffered more than imagined to achieve their first victory in the Libertadores. In a game that started without suffering and became difficult, the alviverde team beat Sporting Cristal 2-1, at Allianz Parque, thanks to a controversial penalty conceded by young Arthur and converted by Flaco López.
O defender Murilo also scored in the triumph that put Palmeiras at the top of Group F, now ahead of Cerro Porteño, Sporting Cristal and Junior Barranquilla. The Peruvians scored a great goal with González and only failed to equalize because Carlos Miguel stepped up in extra time.
O Palmeiras was completely dominant in the first half. There was 67% ball possession and 17 shots. At home, he put pressure on his Peruvian rival from the start, found solutions to break the defense and found his goal.
He did almost everything he had to do. Almost because the Alviverde team lacked efficiency, which finished a lot and poorly most of the time, and still gave space for the Peruvian rival to counterattack. Only Murilo, with a header, found the net in one of the many offensive attacks by Abel’s team, led offensively by Allan, Arias and Sosa.
The effectiveness that Palmeiras lacked left to Sporting Cristal. The Peruvians found the net the only time they went on the attack thanks to the precision of Juan González’s beautiful shot.
In the second half, Palmeiras knew they had to be patient to deal with the Peruvians’ tiresome performance and to find ways to get past the opponent’s defense, armed with all 11 players in the defensive field.
You knew, but he was unable to execute what had been planned. The hosts were irritated by their rival’s approach and, nervous, had difficulty finding the spaces they had found in the initial stage. Sosa disappeared, Arias tried inside and Flaco remained unlit.
The best way was from the sides, with crosses into the area. That’s how Flaco scored. But the Argentine was offside, as VAR confirmed, frustrating the more than 30,000 Palmeiras fans at Allianz Parque.
They celebrated when young Arthur, who had entered the field a few minutes ago in place of the contested Giay, scored a penalty that Chilean referee Piero Maza awarded after going to the VAR monitor. Flaccus converted.
Palmeiras, after that, only suffered. AND managed to sustain the triumph because Carlos Miguel saved a header just a few meters from his face. Victory, in the end, hard-earned and more difficult than expected.
