Venezuela deserved to take the three points at home, but had to settle for one as they were unable to breach the Uruguayan goal, which was held by Sergio Rochetthe figure of the match in Maturín, under a downpour. With the 0-0, although it could not recover from the tough defeat against Bolivia, the Vinotinto still showed improvement and remains in the qualification zone for the 2026 World Cup, while Uruguay dropped one position, although it remains comfortably on the podium in the standings of the South American Qualifiers.
However, in this double date the gunpowder was wet for the Celeste since He didn’t score any goals. In the previous match, they had also drawn without goals, against Paraguay, at home in Montevideo. To make matters worse, their historic scorer was removed Luis Suarez.
Thanks to Rochet’s hands and body, Uruguay was saved from defeat on Venezuelan soil. The Inter de Porto Alegre goalkeeper put his 198 centimetres at the service of the team and made five key saves, one in the first half and four in the second half.
In the first, he made a good save by deflecting a shot from outside the area by Salomón Rondón; in the second, he saved Telasco Segovia from a one-on-one; in the third, he got his hands on a shot by Miguel Navarro; in the fourth, he prevented Jefferson Savarino from scoring after a great collective play by Venezuela; and in the fifth, he excelled in stopping another shot by Savarino.
Venezuela had also come close in the first half with two plays by Rondón. In one of them he headed just wide and in the other he had scored but was in an offside position. And a few minutes from the end, a header by Yordan Osorio, who arrived unmarked, incredibly went wide.
Under these circumstances, Bielsa was very restless on the bench. In fact, he got up more than once from the little refrigerator on which he sits. But it was difficult for him to accommodate his team, which as the minutes passed clung to the tie. He tried with Miguel Merentielwho made his debut in Uruguay, but the former Boca player could do little.
Of all the players, because of how the match unfolded and because they had to make a change after 4 minutes of play due to the injury of central defender Sebastián Cáceres, Uruguay looked upon the draw with affection and returned to Montevideo with another point to get closer to their objective.
