Boca Juniors, with Mariano Herrón as interim coach, drew 0-0 against Monagas in their Copa Libertadores debut as a visitor, in Venezuela. The match corresponding to Group F was refereed by the Brazilian Wilton Sampaio.
At the start of the match, Boca asserted his speed in attack with Villa and Langoni to endanger the goal guarded by Mosquera. Thus, the goalkeeper intervened again three times when Fabra and Villa finished off the goal, and forced Mosquera to fly through the air to clear the ball.
With the passing of the minutes, the Venezuelan team began to cheer up and tested “Chiquito” Romero. Monagas, through his attackers, took advantage of the errors in Boca’s exit and shot from outside the area on several occasions. For their part, Xeneize tried with a free kick executed by Villa that went near the crossbar.
Boca, with different defensive errors, suffered the expulsion of Bruno Valdez. The Paraguayan arrived at the wrong time and hit the face of the Monagas attacker with his booty, who was left hand in hand with Romero. Minutes before, after a strong challenge, the defender Facundo Roncaglia was reprimanded by the referee Sampaio.
At the start of the complement, after a combination of Advíncula and Varela, Benedetto broke the post after a great shot. Xeneize came out to play the second half with another imprint and with the entry of the Peruvian full-back to replace Luca Langoni. In the next play, Pol Fernández missed the first of the night with a deflected shot after a cross from Fabra.
When it seemed that Boca had reduced Monagas to the last meters, the Venezuelan team was very close to opening the scoring with a shot from Romero that went just wide. Herrón reached into the team and gave Merentiel and Fernández minutes to try to twist the result in his favor, but in a clash with the goalkeeper, the striker Merentiel had to be replaced by Briasco. However, in a bad calculation, Roncaglia cut off a Monagas advance and was sent off for a double yellow card.
With that adversity and inaccuracy, Boca tried to the end and with deflected shots he could not break Orlando Mosquera’s fence. The Xeneize, competed on an equal footing for a large part of the complement until the expulsion of Roncaglia. On different occasions, the Argentine team was disconnected, with precision errors and even in a bad position, which unleashed the audacity of the Venezuelan team, which was also close to breaking equality at zero.
Synthesis:
Monagas: Orlando Mosquera; Cristopher Rodríguez, Hárold Cummings, Rubén Ramírez; Ivan Anderson; Aldo Quiñónez, Andrés Romero, Edanyilber Navas; Santiago Herrera, Abdiel Arroyo, Fernando Basante.
Boca: Sergio Rosemary; Nicholas Figal, Facundo Roncaglia, Bruno Valdez, Frank Fabra; Paul Fernandez, Alan Varela; Luca Langoni, Darius Benedetto and Sebastian Villa.
Incidences: 39′ B. Valdez (Expelled); 85′ F. Roncaglia (Expelled)
Referee: Wilton Sampaio, from Brazil.
Basketball court: Monument of Maturín.
