Metropolitanos hold nerve in victory over possession-dominant Táchira
Metropolitanos beat Deportivo Táchira 3:1 at home in the Clausura stage of the First Division on Saturday night. The hosts took control through three first-half goals and held on despite a late red card to their visitors. Táchira finished with ten men after G. Fratta was sent off in the seventy-first minute.
C. Camarillo opened the scoring in the twenty-eighth minute before J. Caraballo doubled the lead just before half-time. Miku added a third in the forty-eighth minute, and things came to a head when the visitors lost their composure. By then, Metropolitanos had already put the game beyond doubt.
Match events
- 28' goal C. Camarillo
- 38' yellow card D. Alfonzo
- 45+2' goal J. Caraballo
- 48' goal Miku
- 63' substitution Miku off, D. Zalzman on
- 65' substitution B. Palmezano off, D. Alfonzo on
- 71' substitution C. Camarillo off, R. Figueroa on
- 71' red card G. Fratta
- 84' substitution R. Pollero off, L. Lusnig on
- 86' substitution S. Ramirez off
- 89' yellow card J. D. Duarte Arias
- 90+1' yellow card R. Sangiovani
- 90+2' goal K. Ortiz
Táchira had sixty-three per cent possession and completed 352 passes to Metropolitanos' 182, but the statistics tell only part of the story. The visitors registered eight shots on target from nineteen attempts while the hosts hit six from twelve. Things came to a head when Fratta's dismissal changed the dynamic entirely.
The result keeps Metropolitanos in third place on thirty-eight points from nineteen games, while Táchira remain top with forty points after twenty matches. The gap between them remains two points, but the visitors now have one less game to make up that ground. Metropolitanos have kept three clean sheets on the spin in recent weeks, and this performance adds to that pattern.
Ortiz snatched a consolation goal in the ninety-second minute, but the match had been decided long before. Táchira were dominant in the air from set plays with ten successful aerial duels, yet they could not find the breakthrough when it mattered. Metropolitanos switched off at the back only briefly, and the high line was picked apart efficiently in the opening exchanges.