Magallanes beat Curico Unido 1:0 in the Primera B Regular Season round 16 on Saturday, a result that keeps the hosts in fourth place while leaving the visitors rooted in thirteenth. The match ended after ninety-plus minutes of tight, watchful football rather than anything open or flowing.
The only goal came at sixty-six minutes when C. Jorquera found the net, and by then the game had settled into a rhythm where both sides knew what they were up against. Curico had picked up two yellow cards early — G. Sarria at twenty-eight and A. Walters at thirty-six — and that seemed to tighten things up for the visitors.
We had given Magallanes a fifty-seven percent chance of winning before kick-off, and while fifty-seven isn't confidence in the way you'd want, it was enough. This wasn't a match where tactics were on display so much as patience, and patience is what Magallanes showed.
Magallanes dominated possession at sixty-two per cent and registered 152 attacks against 119 for Curico, but those numbers don't tell you how cramped the game felt. Four shots on target for the hosts produced one goal, while Curico managed two attempts on goal — chances went begging for both sides, really.
Curico were out of sight by the eightieth minute, and Magallanes picked up two more substitutions around that window, bringing on M. Alegre and J. Retamales among others. They held on grimly after that, seeing the game out despite a late yellow for J. Quiroz in stoppage time.
The three points move Magallanes to 43 points from 26 games, six ahead of Curico on 24. It isn't a commanding gap, but it's enough to keep the hosts clear of trouble while the visitors have nothing to lose going forward.
