No Advantage For The Champion

By César García

First Leg
Thursday, 4 of December, 2008
Santos 0 - 0 Toluca

The current champion of Mexican football, Santos Laguna, is in serious trouble after failing to take a positive home result against an extremely organized and dangerous Diablos Rojos of Toluca, in the first match of their semifinal series.

A large part for the lack of scoring, had to do with the record-breaking performance of Toluca's Argentine goalkeeper, Hernán Cristante, who established a new record of 746 minutes without receiving a goal.

Cristante surpassed the record of 736 minutes that was set in the 1993-1994 season by Tecos goalkeeper Alan Cruz.

The match itself was a close and heavily disputed encounter, with constant attacks down the wings and dangerous approximations in both areas.

It was up to both veteran goalkeepers, Oswaldo Sánchez and Cristante, to preserve the purity of their goal, with a number of incredible dives and saves.

Santos proposed the attacking initiative in the early minutes but their efforts suffered a heavy blow with an early injury to midfielder Fernando Arce, who was substituted in the seventh minute.

For their part, the Diablos demonstrated a great defensive order which controlled and subdued the dangerous Santos offense for large parts of the match.  

Also, through a constant stream of dangerous counterattacks Toluca came the closest to take the victory, but their efforts were denied by a good performance by Santos goalkeeper Oswaldo Sánchez.

With the result, Toluca have the champion teetering on the edge of elimination since the decisive match of the series will be played at the inferno of “La Bombonera,” where they were the best home side of the regular season.  

Toluca was the second best team in the general table and they will go through in case of a draw in the aggregate score.

Santos only have the option of victory to continue defending their title.

The second leg of this semifinal series will take place on Sunday, December 7, at the Estadio Nemesio Díez in Toluca.

-- César García covers México for Goal.com.