Inter and FAS played out a 2:2 draw in the ninth round of the Apertura in the Primera División on Wednesday. The result leaves the visitors still top of the table with 16 points from eight games, while the hosts sit third on 15. Both sides had taken the lead before the half-time break, and neither side could find a winner after the interval.
The opening exchanges produced little tension until Yan Maciel found the net for Inter in the eleventh minute. Two minutes later Y. Hernandez equalised, and the pattern of the match became clear early on. Goals came quickly, and neither defence looked particularly settled. By then the visitors had already shown they would not be intimidated by their surroundings.
At half-time M. Urbina restored Inter's advantage, turning the score into 2:1 after a period where the hosts had done enough to believe they could control proceedings. And here's the thing — the momentum had shifted, but only briefly. The visitors responded with purpose, and L. E. Vasquez Guillen pulled them level in the fifty-fourth minute, ending any hopes of a home victory.
To be fair, the result reflected the form of both sides coming into this fixture. Inter had won four of their last eight league games, including a 2:0 victory over Kakaguatec on Tuesday. FAS were second to nothing in their recent run, though they had suffered a 0:2 defeat to Cartaginés away from home on the twenty-sixth of August. The draw extended a pattern of results that neither team seemed able to break consistently.
We had tipped the visitors to win at 45 per cent confidence, but the match refused to follow that line. The hosts found a way through when the visitors were at their most vulnerable, and the away side could not respond with the sharpness required to close the game out. The prediction simply did not account for how quickly Inter could turn a deficit into an advantage.
Inter remain third in the table, one point behind the leaders, while FAS extend their advantage at the top to a single point. The result does not change the order of the standings, but it does suggest that the gap between first and third is narrowing. Both teams still have plenty of ground to cover before the season reaches its conclusion.