Aurorá saw off Gualberto Villarroel 3-0 in the Apertura, round 18 of the Primera División on Friday evening. The hosts moved clear in the middle of the table while the visitors sank further into trouble. Three goals from open play and a moment of VAR drama decided it.
Michael Rangel opened the scoring in the seventh minute, picking up a loose ball and slotting home. Then came the twist: Joaquín Lencinas turned his own team's attack against him in the fourteenth. The ball trickled past his keeper and into the net.
By then the visitors were rattled. The referee checked the monitor for Lencinas' second own goal and confirmed it in the seventeenth. And here's the thing — once a keeper concedes two in quick succession, the psychological damage is done.
Aurorá made three changes at half-time, bringing on Matheus Moresche, G. Vaca and Santiago Pinto Soliz. Ronaldo Monteiro came on for the visitors in the fifty-seventh, but they had already lost their shape. Alan Miguel Terrazas Castro picked up a yellow card in the sixty-first, then was replaced himself twelve minutes later.
The statistics tell the story Aurorá wrote on the pitch. They held 62 per cent possession and launched 112 attacks compared to 62 for Gualberto Villarroel. Eight shots on target produced three goals — not the most efficient conversion, but enough when the visitors created nothing.
The result keeps Aurorá fifth with 27 points from 18 games, while Gualberto Villarroel sit sixteenth on 14. We had backed the home side at 50 per cent confidence before kickoff. To be fair, when a team dominates possession and attacks like that, the outcome was never in doubt.