Medellín goes to Techo on Wednesday at 8:05 p.m. with no room left to drift. The match against Internacional de Bogotá is the club’s last pending game in the fifth date of the tournament, and it arrives with Medellín seventh on 23 points, still inside the fight but no longer comfortable.
The pressure is simple enough to count. Medellín has picked up only 4 of the last 15 points it has played for in the league, and it needs to win at least three of its four remaining matches to find calm in the Clausura race. Only one of those games will be at home, which makes this trip to Bogotá more than a detour; it is part of the stretch that will decide whether the team stays alive among the semifinal candidates.
There is also the matter of memory. Internacional de Bogotá, the team formerly known as Equidad, already beat Medellín 1-2 on February 6 at Atanasio Girardot in the Apertura, with Dereck Moncada scoring twice and Lésyer Chaverra replying for Medellín. That result still hangs over a side that now sits 13th with 17 points and has scored 18 goals in 16 Clausura matches, a modest return for a team that will have to live with fewer chances than the standings suggest.
The harder problem, though, is behind Medellín as much as in front of it. Amaranto Perea has watched his team give up 21 goals and go 11 matches between Liga and Copa Colombia without a clean sheet, a run that has turned every lead into a negotiation. Medellín last shut out an opponent on September 3, when it beat Deportivo Pereira 0-3 at the stadium of Deportivo Cali, and since then it has conceded against Pasto, Chicó, Bucaramanga, Jaguares, Junior, Millonarios, Santa Fe, América de Cali, Atlético Nacional twice and Once Caldas. In that search for answers, the back line has to choose size and timing carefully: Kevin Mantilla is 1.91 meters tall, Alfonso Simarra is 1.90 and Joaquín Varela is 1.89, while the question in goal remains whether Chaux or Echazo gets the start.
Simarra’s case gives the evening a human edge. The 26-year-old joined DIM in the second half of the year after standing out with Universidad Central de Caracas in Venezuela, and he has already shown he can matter in a crowded match, scoring the discount goal in the clásico paisa of date 16. Medellín does not need a story about recovery as much as it needs one about control, and this is the match that will show whether it can still impose it. With four regular-phase games left and only one at home, Wednesday night may decide whether the quadrangular race is still a race at all.
