In an unannounced tribute to goalkeeper
Neto at his worst,
Botafogo lost 6-1 to
Cienciano on Thursday the 13th in Cusco, in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana Round of 16.
Warleson took on the job of reminding supporters that the position remains very well supplied with scares. In the language of the interview that became a meme: wow.
It was a historic scoreline. Not in the pleasant sense the word tends to acquire on social media, but in the sense that someone will have to explain for years how
Botafogo reached half-time 4-0 down to
Cienciano.
Four goals before half-time
Botafogo went into the match looking to control the pace at altitude. They controlled it so thoroughly that they nearly stopped. The side played slowly to save its breath and allowed
Cienciano to use every available molecule of oxygen to run, attack and score.
Matías Succar opened the scoring in the 17th minute and got the third in the 29th.
Danilo Bandiera scored between those goals in the 19th minute, while
Marcos Martinich completed the job in the 34th. In 17 minutes,
Botafogo turned a knockout tie into a guided tour of their own disorder.
It was not only about the altitude. The ball moved around without pressure, the defence lost its references and the team arrived late to almost every play.
Cienciano did not need to find a secret formula. All they had to do was speed up against an opponent that seemed determined to save energy for the next humiliation.
Warleson’s wow moment
Warleson was not the only one responsible for the rout. Blaming six goals on one person would be generous to the defence. But the goalkeeper was part of the mess, made mistakes and never inspired confidence on a night when every Peruvian attack seemed ready to end in the net.
The season had already given supporters a collection of errors from
Neto. When the chance came to change the character, the script stayed the same. Out went the man being honoured, in came the man handling the tribute. Wow.
The problem is bigger than the goalkeeper.
Franclim Carvalho assembled a side unable to compete from the start, and the players answered with slowness, gaps between the lines and a passivity unfit for continental knockout football.
Botafogo, owners of the best group-stage campaign, approached the match as if they could sort everything out whenever they felt like it.
Cienciano, who had already beaten
Lanús 4-0 in Cusco, thanked them for ignoring the warning.
A goal to keep the cruelty going
Matheus Martins pulled one back three minutes into the second half. For a moment, the goal made it possible to imagine the team finding its way back into the match.
Cienciano promptly ended that self-help session.
Danilo Bandiera scored again in the 16th minute, and
Matías Succar completed his hat-trick in the 32nd. The 6-1 was not an isolated accident within the game. It was the result of a team that started badly, stayed bad and still found time to get worse.
Time to rest now
The return leg is next Thursday the 20th at 9:30pm at Nilton Santos.
Botafogo need to win by five goals to take the tie to penalties. By six, they go through outright. It is the kind of arithmetic that preserves the possibility on paper and exposes the scale of the embarrassment in reality.
Maybe the plan really was to save breath in Cusco. If elimination is confirmed in Rio, it will work even better: out of the Copa Sudamericana, the squad will gain several dates to rest. Few teams manage energy with such long-term vision.
Botafogo still have 90 minutes to attempt something that looks absurd today. The minimum, though, is not to promise a miracle. It is to play at normal speed, defend like a professional team and keep the historic night in Cusco from getting a sequel at Nilton Santos.
