América de Cali could not qualify for the last 16 of the Copa Libertadores, although the third place in its group was enough to be in the South American Cup after Atlético Mineiro’s victory over La Guaira, from Venezuela.
Although they had some options to score, the scarlet team confirmed their lack of effectiveness in the offensive part. In fact, the coach in charge, Jersson González, appreciated the presentation of some players and questioned the attitude of others, although he preferred not to mention them.
Meanwhile, captain Adrián Ramos said that “there we had some occasions when we should have been effective, we did not have that fortune, they did not take advantage of it and Cerro took advantage of the clearest it had and that was the difference. In the second half it was a very close game, very intense, we lacked a little precision when we were in front of the goal, football is won with goals and Cerro took advantage of the one he had ”.
Regarding the participation of the red team, he pointed out that “it has been a tough Cup for us, the team reacted late in the matches, we gave a lot of advantage, and we did not live up to what this Cup demanded, last night the match is lost In one of those, Cerro was gambling his classification, he came out to show it, we took a long time to get into that and when we reacted we were already down, then the game was very even ”.
Regarding what they should change in the collective functioning, he said that “there is a lot to correct, fortunately we are still in international competition, we know that it is played at another intensity and we must know how to compete, the match with Cerro is lost because of that because in the first minutes we did not know how to compete, Cerro did and took advantage of what he had.
The Cauca forward also referred to the quota obtained for the other continental competition: “The positive thing about this is that we are in Suramericana, the past is past, the present is what speaks, we had the illusion of being in the other round of the Cup. Libertadores, it did not reach us, we have to correct for future participation, if we want to compete it has to be at another level ”.
For many, the fact that the Colombian champion was left out in the group stage is a failure, to which Ramos replied: “Our objective was to qualify for the second round, it was not achieved and now we have the fortune to to continue in Suramericana, we must correct because international tournaments are played at a different intensity ”.
Marco Antonio Garcés
Correspondent Futbolred Cali
On twitter: @marquitosgarces
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