Well, savages, it looks like I am on the wrong side of this one after the 1st leg action of the Copa Libertadores and will need nothing short of some miracles to keep pace with my predictions.

The fact that Gremio takes a 2 goal lead into Santos is not as bad as Boca returning home with a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Cucuta, and though it all may seem a little dour now, I haven’t lost faith just yet.

While it seems Santos was not prepared for the first outing, you would never put it past a Brazilian team to mirror the first score and take the tie into penalties. Having said that though, if Gremio scores an away goal, then it looks like the blue-and-blacks will be in the final.

Boca, on the other hand, have much more to worry about. Even though they have the all important away goal, the fact they gave up 3 unanswered goals shows they have become a little sloppy and didn’t take the Colombian side seriously.

Now Cucuta has the opportunity to become the Once Caldas of a few years ago (another Colombian side that had a shock win back in 2004) with a positive result in Argentina. Even if Cucuta defeats Boca, I do believe their giant killing ways will fall short in the final.

Otherwise, I am still on for my initial predictions, calling a total turn around for both Santos and Boca.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 11:00 am and is filed under Soccer World, Copa Libertadores. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.