Copa Libertadores Roundup — Feb. 17–19

“50 años de pasión”, “50 Years Of Pas­sion.”  The 50th edi­tion of South America’s great­est club tour­na­ment is under­way.  The all impor­tant group stage is tak­ing place with teams all over the con­ti­nent vying for the Lib­er­ta­dores tro­phy and a spot in the FIFA Club World Cup.  

The defend­ing cham­pi­ons, Liga De Quito began their quest to repeat with an excit­ing 3–2 win over Palmeiras.  Wál­ter Calderon scored twice in a back in forth affair with Damián Manso scor­ing the game win­ner in the 58th minute to put Liga atop Group 1 tied with Sport Recife of Brazil.

Speak­ing of Sport Recife, the Brazil­ian side pulled the sur­prise result of the week by beat­ing Colo Colo 2–1 in Chile.  The 2008 Copa Do Brazil champs jumped on Colo Colo early with goals in 7th minute by Ciro & right before half-time in the 44th by his strike part­ner Wil­son.  The Chileans replied in the 71st when their super striker Lucas Bar­rios scored but it wasn’t enough to pre­vent Sport from get­ting the 3 points. 

Peren­nial favorites, Boca Juniors edged a con­ser­v­a­tive Deportivo Cuenca side 1–0 at La Bom­bon­era.  Rodrigo Pala­cio scored for Los Xeneizes in the 13th minute to take down the Ecuado­rian side. 

Another pre-tourney favorite, São Paulo, had a disp­point­ing start to their Lib­er­ta­dores cam­paign as Inde­pen­di­ente Medellin almost pulled three points from The Morumbi.  The Colom­bians took the lead in the 79th minute when 2nd half sub Luis Arias scored for the 1–0 lead but the Brazil­ian champs pushed and a 2nd half  injury time goal from Borges sal­vaged a point for the Tri­color Paulista.

Here are the results from this week’s matches:

Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 17th

Group 1
 Liga De Quito (ECU) 3 — 2 Palmeiras (BRA)
LDQ:  Calderón (24′ & 35′), Manso (58′)
PAL:  Willians San­tana (28′) & Edmil­son (47′)

Group 2
Boca Juniors (ARG) 1 — 0 Dep. Cuenca (ECU)
BOC:  Pala­cio (12′)

Group 6
Ever­ton (CHI) 1 — 0 Cara­cas FC (VEN)
EVE: Gutiér­rez (45′)

Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 18th

Group 1
Colo Colo (CHI) 1 — 2 Sport Recife (BRA)
COL: Bar­rios (70′)
SPO: Ciro (6′) & Wil­son (44′)

Group 3
Nacional (PAR) 0 — 3 Nacional Mon­te­v­ideo (URU)
NAC-U: Fer­nán­dez (10′), Lodeiro (38′), Mondaini (63′)

Group 4
São Paulo (BRA) 1 — 1 Dep. Ind. Medellin (COL)
SPO: Borges (90′)
IND: Arias (79′)

Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 19

Group 5
 Cruzeiro (BRA) 3 — 0 Estu­di­antes LP (ARG)
CRZ: Fer­nand­inho (pen 62′), Kléber (68′ & 72′)

Group 8
 Uni­ver­si­tario (PER) 1 — 0 San Lorenzo (ARG)
UNI: Solano (pen 21′)

Tagged as: Copa Libertadores