Atlético Mineiro reached the Copa Sudamericana final on Wednesday despite losing 2-0 to Montevideo City Torque, advancing 3-2 on aggregate after a first-leg lead that proved just enough. The Brazilian side will now meet Boca Juniors in Barranquilla in a month.
The semifinal turned on a tie Atlético Mineiro had built with a 3-0 win in Belo Horizonte, then nearly gave back in Montevideo. Kevin Silva scored in the 89th minute and Gary Kagelmacher added another in the 90+4 minute, but Montevideo City Torque still fell one goal short after Alan Franco was sent off in the 76th minute.
For Marcelo Méndez, the ending felt painfully close. “No se dio por poco ante un rival con un presupuesto treinta veces mayor,” he said after Montevideo City Torque completed the best international participation in its history. The result leaves the club out of the final, but it also showed how far it pushed a team built to reach this stage and no farther.
That is what makes the final so compelling now. Atlético Mineiro was trying to get back to a championship match after losing the same stage in 2025 to Lanús, and it had already fallen in the Libertadores final in 2024 to Botafogo. Boca Juniors arrives with six Libertadores and two Sudamericanas, and after turning around its semifinal against Vasco Da Gama at Maracaná, it can become the first three-time Copa Sudamericana champion if it beats Atlético Mineiro.
The contrast is sharp: one finalist is trying to avoid another painful near miss, while the other is chasing a place in tournament history. In a month, Barranquilla will decide which one finishes the run and which one is left with the same hard lesson Montevideo City Torque learned after coming within one goal of changing the tie.
