Veraguas and San Francisco Share Points in Eight-Goal Thriller
Veraguas and San Francisco played out a 3:3 draw in the Panama Football League's Apertura tournament, fifth round, on Saturday night. The result keeps the hosts top of the table with 25 points from 16 games, while the visitors remain fourth on 20 points. And here's the thing about this match — it never settled into any rhythm at all.
R. Dinolis opened the scoring for Veraguas in the twelfth minute, then struck again a minute later to give the hosts a 2:0 lead. C. Hernandez responded immediately for San Francisco, finding the net in both the fifteenth and sixteenth minutes to level things up. By then the match had already shown its hand as a rapid-fire encounter.
V. Medina added two more goals for Veraguas before half-time, at 45+1 and 45+2, pushing the score to 4:2. The visitors came out with three changes at the break — J. Sagel, F. Gomez and E. Ceballos all came on. To be fair, San Francisco needed fresh legs after conceding four in quick succession.
K. Bonilla pulled two goals back for the visitors, scoring in the fiftieth and fifty-second minutes to make it 4:4. Veraguas' goalkeeper seemed to have nothing to do all evening, while the away side's nine shots on target told their story better than possession figures.
Both managers shuffled their decks around the hour mark, with five substitutions coming through the 59th and 61st minutes. The game opened up again when J. Navarro restored Veraguas' lead in the seventy-seventh minute, only for C. Hernandez to equalise a minute later with his third of the night.
Veraguas had 55 per cent possession and 87 attacks, but San Francisco's nine shots on target against three from the hosts suggests where the danger lay. The visitors also won more free kicks, 15 to 10, and picked up three yellow cards compared to one for the home side.
The result means Veraguas extend their unbeaten run to five matches, having drawn two and won three in their last five outings. San Francisco's form has been mixed — two wins and a loss in their previous three — and they'll take a point away from this one.
Eight goals, three different scorers for each side, and a match that never stopped running. That's the kind of fixture that leaves you with more questions than answers.