I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Bolivia is a perfectly nice country. I think it’s a place I’d like to visit.” But you should not go to Bolivia, because their air turns your lungs into jelly. You arrive in excellent physical condition and leave a melted puddle of human remains.
Copa Libertadores scores: Never go to Bolivia, plus more from Thursday’s 3 games
Seriously playing soccer at 12,000 feet is so dumb.
Julian Finney/Getty Images
Copa Libertadores sucks for low-altitude teams visiting Bolivia, and that was especially true this week. Internacional got worked over by The Strongest and a better team, River Plate, struggled just as much against San Jose on Thursday. While San Jose are arguably not as good of a team as The Strongest, they also play at an even higher altitude, over 12,000 feet above sea level.
In other action, defending champions San Lorenzo moseyed around doing nothing for a while, then decided to start playing and notched a great away win. And we learned absolutely nothing about how Group 7 is going to shake out, thanks to a scoring draw in Paraguay.
Here’s what we saw in Thursday’s three games.
NEVER GO TO BOLIVIA
Exhibit A:
River tried to deal with this by TAKING VIAGRA.
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:
#River se convierte en el club argentino que perdió en más ciudades diferentes por #Libertadores: #Oruro fue la 23º ciudad
— Banco de datos (@FutbolXXI) February 20, 2015 LRT: River Plate have lost Libertadores matches in more different cities than any other Argentine club - 23 after tonight's defeat in Oruro.
— Sam Kelly (@HEGS_com) February 20, 2015 Exhibit D:
River, post derrota en el vestuario SIN AGUA CALIENTE (la temp exterior -2) para ducharse y charter a SCDLSierra. MAMADERA !!! La Copa...
— Raul Rivello (@RivelloRaul) February 20, 2015 LRT: According to that, there's no hot water in the River dressing room for the showers. Outside temperature is -2 Celsius.
— Sam Kelly (@HEGS_com) February 20, 2015 The good news for River is that they got this over with early.
Our favorite goal of the night comes from Atlético Nacional
The finish by Pablo Zeballos of Atlético Nacional is pretty good, but what makes this great is the assist. Watch Jonathan Copete just hit the truck stick.
Group 7 is going to be very tight, and a 2-2 away draw is a solid result for Atlético Nacional. The Colombian side are slight favorites to win the group, though we’ll have to see what Estudiantes La Plata and Barcelona have to offer next week.
San Lorenzo played on difficult mode and won
Danubio scored early at home and then looked very much in control for just about the entirety of their match against San Lorenzo. Then, at around the 80th minute, the defending champs decided to start playing. They scored two goals, in the 86th and 88th minutes, respectively, to capture a crucial win.
This is the group with São Paulo and Corinthians, so San Lorenzo had to take at least four points from games against Danubio to feel like they had a shot to advance. Danubio absolutely had to win this game. What we got was San Lorenzo showing no sense of urgency, realizing what was at stake most of the way through the game, then just deciding to win.
Thursday scores
Libertad 2-2 Atlético Nacional
Danubio 1-2 San Lorenzo
San Jose 2-0 River Plate
See More:
