January 7, 2021
Just three days after their early morning defeat at Palestino previously documented in these diaries, Curico Unido take to the field again as the Chilean Primera Division continues its hectic schedule attempting to complete its regular season by the end of January. Curico are scheduled to play 10 matches in January, title challengers Union La Calera will play an incredible 11 times, whilst everyone else will have at least 8 league matches in the month. Poor Coquimbo Unido face 9 games plus at least 2 more in the COPA Sudamerica.
Today it is Curico’s turn to host the 10.30am fixture with Club de Deportes Antofagasta being the opposition at their 8,273 capacity Estadio La Granja stadium.
Antofagasta is 1,335km north of the capital Santiago by road, a journey of more than 15 hours, so the trip to Curico would be at least 17 hours by coach ! Hopefully they have flown and stayed the night nearby, the Radisson Hotel Curico is less than 2km from the ground……….
Antofagasta is the 5th largest city in Chile, and was part of Bolivia until the 1879-83 War of the Pacific. It’s football team play in the 21,178 capacity Estadio Bicentenario Calvo y Bascunan, which is a multi-purpose sports complex, and they normally play in strip of light blue and white halves and white shorts, not to dis-similar to Blackburn Rovers. Today, they will wear their change kit of red and black halves and black shorts to avoid the clash with Curico’s Peru style all white with a red diagonal sash.
The nickname of the club is Los Pumas and the coach of the side is ex-international forward Hector Tapia, who numbers Lille amongst his former clubs.
Antofagasta’s best league finish was in 2018 when they came 4th, which resulted in their one appearance in the COPA Sudamerica. Before kick-off today they lie in a very respectable 4th place in the Primera Division, 3 points ahead of Curido but from 2 games more. However, they have won only twice in the last 11 matches, and last time out fell to a 0-1 defeat at home to Colo Colo, one of the big 3 clubs in Chile, but who after finishing second last season are unexpectedly bottom of the table.
Antofagasta have a decent 6-6-2 home record, the only other defeat coming against Universidad Catolica, one of the other big 3 clubs. Away from home they have a 4-4-5 record, and were unbeaten in their first 5 games. Three of the away wins have been 1-0 ( La Serena, O’Higgins and Coquimbo ) and Iquique were hammered 4-0. Their last away match was a hard fought 1-1 draw at third place Union Espinola, when several decent saves from keeper Ignacio Gonzalez helped earn a point after a smart finish from 21 year old Jason Flores had given them a first half lead.
Antofagasta have had a pretty settled squad so far this season, with 12 players featuring in 20 or more of the 27 league games. 35 year old centre back Cristian Rojas has played well over 200 times for the club, left back Nicolas Penailiilo had a brief spell with Zenit St Petersburg, forward Carlos Munoz has won 11 caps and played in the UAE, and fellow veteran striker Felipe Flores has 2 caps and has played in Spain for Salamanca.
Other players with representative honours for Chile are centre back Branco Ampuero, who has one cap, and keeper Fernando Hurtado, who won 1 cap back in 2007.
There are four foreign players who have featured regularly during the season. 32 year old Paraguayan centre-back Gustavio Mencia has played three times for his country, 20 year old attacking midfielder Eduard Bello has 2 caps for Venezuela, forward Tobias Figueroa is Argentinian and midfielder Gonzalo Freitas comes from Uruguay.
Bello is the top scorer with 7 goals, followed by Andres Souper and Figueroa who have both found the net 5 times.
Curido have now lost four consecutive matches and will be looking to arrest this slide and get back into contention for a COPA Libertadores place. Despite a strong second half performance at Palestino, some of their players did look tired at the end, which several people on social media put down to the lack of recovery time after the Covid outbreak in the squad. Having had just three more days to recover it remains to be seen exactly what condition they will be in for today’s game.
When the sides met first time around in March it was a 0-0 draw in both sides last game before the Covid suspension. Another close encounter looks to be in prospect today…..
Curido make three changes from the match on Monday, with Diego Vera replacing youngster Gabriel Harding upfront, Matias Cavalleri replacing Corral in midfield, whilst at the back Lara drops down to the bench in favour of Leonel Galeano, an Argentine centre-back with 1 cap making his debut after signing from Aucas in Ecuador.
Antofagasta make two changes. Keeper Gonzalez’s reward for the good performance against Union Espinola is to warm the bench, with Fernando Hurtado taking his place. The other change sees Ariel Uribe replacing Souper in midfield. Right back Byron Nieto is available to play despite his red card against Colo Colo.
Despite their bad run, Bet365 have Curido as evens favourites to win, with Antofagasta at 13/5, and the draw 12/5
Estadio La Granja has nice looking covered stands on either side of the pitch with the seats in red and white. There is a running track around the pitch and large inflatables with advertising are placed in the spaces behind the goals and the track. Behind one goal, the main stand goes about a third of the way around the corner and in the rest of the space is a large scoreboard. Behind the other goal appear to be some temporary tiered benches, which would be called bleachers in the US, behind which is a hill and some trees.
The game starts slowly, with both sides content to patiently probe for openings, with the referee allowing some heavy challenges to go unpunished, until the 13th minute when Unido’s Castro gets the first yellow card of the match for a late sliding tackle. The first half-chance occurs to Antofagasta with nearly 20 minutes on the clock, but Flores is unable to get on the end of a chip over the top and the ball goes off for a goal kick. Not a lot else is happening early on, although Bello looks lively on the right for the visitors.
Curico slowly start to get into the game, and after 28 minutes Parra gets to the bye-line on the left and his low cross is unconvincingly gathered by the diving Hurtado.
Three minutes later Cavalleri sends in a cross which Vera, under pressure can’t get a decent contact with his header, and the ball loops up for an easy save. They win their third corner of the match in the 33rd minutes, all of which are harmlessly dealt with.
Antofagasta win their first corner in the 44 minute but at half-time the score remains 0-0. It’s a fair score-line, with neither side deserving any more, as neither had created any decent chances.
The visitors make two substitutions at half-time and start the second period brightly. A break gives Munoz an opportunity to run clear, but he doesn’t have the pace to beat the covering defender and is bundled to the ground. The referee waves play on. A minute later a ball is played over the top, but it is put out for a corner before Munoz can get to it, and from the corner Munoz heads just wide at the near post.
With 55 minutes played a nice pass through the middle gives Bello the space to turn on the edge of the penalty area but his shot curls just wide. With Antofagasta getting on top it feels like a goal is coming. Substitute Felipe Flores is found in space just inside the area but his weak left-footed shot is straight at the keeper who makes a comfortable save.
A minute later though it is Curico who take the lead against the run of play. Castro plays a clever pass behind the defence, Parra runs onto it and squares across the goal to give Vera an easy finish from 6 yards. It is a quality piece of play not in keeping with the rest of the match so far.
Antofagasta struggle to respond as both sides ring the changes. Instead, Curico nearly extend their lead when Hurtado fumbles a corner but the loose ball is flicked over the bar. Los Pumas send a couple of hopeful crosses into the Unido area, but Cerda is alert to dive on the ball after several players challenge for a header, and a low cross from Flores evades three attackers and rolls off for a throw in.
The best chance for an equalizer comes 3 minutes from the end when a quick free-kick is sent long over the line of defence and the ball is crossed to beyond the far post just before it goes out of play. It’s headed back across the goal, but Cerda dives on the ball just before Bello can score.
With the clock now in the 5 minutes of added on time. Unido win a free-kick wide out on the left in line with the Antofagasta penalty box. Parra’s free-kick bounces across the face of the goal where substitute Harding is unmarked at the back post to head home from less than two yards for his first ever goal to make it 2-0 and clinch the three points.
Curico’s 21 year old left back Alex Ibacache is the TV’s man of the match, which is probably a fair call in a match in which there is no outstanding player on view in an average match, although Parra with two assists also had a good game.
Curico bring an end to their 4 game losing run and move level with Antofagasta on 40 points but from two less matches. For Antofagasta it is now just two wins in 12 games.
Curico Unido : Cerda – Buss, Bechtholdt, Galeano ( Lara ), Ibacache – Godoy, Cavalleri ( Jaime ), Cortes ( Urzua ), Parra – Castro, Vera ( Harding )
CD Antofagasta : Hurtado – Nieto ( Soza ), Rojas ( Gonzalez ), Ampuero, Penailiilo – Freitas, Cuadra ( Guerra ), Uribe ( Tello ) – Bello, Munoz, J. Flores ( F. Flores )
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