Images of players celebrating in Argentina shirts dominated the national press this morning, however it wasn’t Messi and compatriots but rather Atletico Tucuman who qualified for the next round of the Copa Libertadores with a 1-0 win after delays, a missed flight, lost luggage and a postponement.
The Copa Libertadores has and continues to be the international tournament that generates the most bizarre and romantic stories in Football. The latest chapter added to this never ending tale was the qualification of Atletico Tucuman to the final stage of qualifying after defeating El Nacional of Ecuador 1-0. While an Argentine team beating and Ecuadorian team may appear routine based the two country´s respective reputations, the relative minnow status of Tucuman explains the achievement. The team prior to this year had never even qualified for the Copa Libertadores and achieved qualification via an administrative ruling that had to permit their first ever appearance in the tournament.
The tale of last night’s victory will be forever immortalized for the difficulty they had in arriving in the Ecuadorian capital. The journey which was plagued equally with travel and logistics problems, arriving late in Ecuador following a missed and then delayed flight. After missing the first flight due to an administrative error, the club rescheduled the teams travel via a number of stop-offs and the team finally arrived in Ecuador. However there was one last twist in the drama as despite the players arriving safely albeit late, the teams kitbag had been lost at some point on the journey. Due to a lack of Ecuadorian sports outlets stocking either the Tucuman’s home or away shirt they were forced to play using that of the Argentine u20 side who happened to be also in Quito at the same time competing in the regional u20 tournament. Images of Tucuman walking out in the Argentina jersey only galvanized national support for the small northern minnows who had already gripped the nation by even qualifying. Diego Maradona even tweeted a message of support declaring that ´Somos todos Tucumanos´ (we are all Tucumanos).
The game itself proved cagey but the winning goal came in the minute when striker Zampedri scored a fine looping header, the goal also lead to further national ridicule of Gonzalo Higuain for the fact that Zampedri was wearing the National Team’s no.9 shirt. Atletico Tucuman will hope to go one step further in this record breaking run by beating Junior of Colombian in the next round and reach the group stage for the first time in history.
