Hernán Crespo believed he had coldly calculated all the imponderables for his debut with Atlas. He was wrong. Reality hit the Argentine suddenly: between his evident ignorance of the Monterrey arsenal.
In addition to the misfortune of losing the selected Jorge Sánchez to injury, the stones piled up in his path. The outcome was a bitter 0-2 against that ruined the red and black party.
This slap did not enter the budget of the former River Plate, Parma and Milan star. Welcome to Mexico, Hernán. The theory says one thing here, but the facts show that, whether home or away, Liga MX requires you to prioritize the result over lyricism.
At first, the Foxes showed off an upbeat pace. Crespo swore that this was enough to disarm the millionaire Rayados squad. What naivety. A couple of sparks from the squad commanded by his compatriot Matías Almeyda were enough to tip the balance and dictate the athlete's sentence.
And Monterrey is no expert in sweets. The talent of Orbelín Pineda, the drive of Lucas Ocampo, the audacity of the guy Iker Fimbres and the speed of a Diego Rossi who has already taken the measure of Mexican soccer, ended up tilting the field.
Rossi precisely scored the winning goal at minute 28. It was a bucket of ice water for the local bench. The Foxes wanted to react and even at 37' they demanded a penalty that referee Jorge Camacho decided to ignore.
From there, the glue completely hardened for the Argentine helmsman. Jorge Sánchez's injury came and a second half where the desire was not enough to change destiny. The Atlas was predictable; They wanted to go into the kitchen playing the ball, forgetting that sometimes you have to hit it from a distance.
The punishment for the lack of ideas was relentless. When the tie seemed to be brewing, the worst came: Luis De Barros – the Cape Verdean who looked like a hero – saw the red card after a tackle by very few friends on Orbelín Pineda.
With Atlas hopeless and in compensation time, Milton Valenzuela fouled Iker Fimbres inside the area. Penalty called. Lucas Ocampo took the ball, charged with the coldness of a surgeon and put the final 0-2 on the forehead of Crespo who went to the locker room scratching his head.
