Alianza Lima falls to Garcilaso, falls further behind in the Clausura

A missed penalty, four clear scoring chances all night and a rival goalkeeper who turned into the hero of the match. That sums up the night Alianza Lima lost its margin for error in the Torneo Clausura. At Matute, with most of the crowd pushing from the stands, Pablo Guede's side fell 1-0 to Deportivo Garcilaso in a match that carried all the weight of an early final.

This was no ordinary game. Garcilaso came in as a direct rival, the kind of opponent that puts you within reach of the top if you beat them, or leaves you watching the tournament from a distance if they beat you. The second scenario played out. With this loss, Alianza fell four points behind the leaders, Garcilaso itself and Universitario de Deportes, and now needs help from other results to keep dreaming of the national title.

What stood out was that puposession and chances near the box belonged to the home side. Guede was clear when going over the match stats: his team generated an enormous number of approaches to the rival goal, but ran into the Cusco goalkeeper time and again, as he came up with several decisive saves.

I think we did everything in our power to win. We attacked through the middle, out wide. They had three chances, we had a penalty we couldn't convert. We have to keep trying, but I think there's something basic here, and it's that the players left everything out therePablo Guede

The Argentine coach went further when breaking down the numbers from the match. By his count, Garcilaso barely threatened four times in 90 minutes: once cleared off the line after a positional error, another that ended in a penalty, and a third on a dangerous foul. On the other end, he admitted his team got forward close to 48 times into the rival box, though with less sharpness than usual.

The lack of goals, once again the problem

The stat that stings the most in Matute is the same one that's haunted the team all season: a lack of finishing. Eryc Castillo, the club's biggest standout and top scorer, wasn't sharp in the final third. And he wasn't alone. The three forwards Guede tried, Paolo Guerrero, Federico Girotti and Luis Ramos, all got minutes on the field, and none of them managed to score.

As the minutes wore on, especially in the closing stretch, the anxiety of a team desperate for an equalizer at any cost became obvious. Long balls forward, rushed crosses and a lack of patience ended up working against them.

The final whistle found part of the crowd visibly upset, sending the team off with a pointed chant: "we want players who want to be champions." A phrase that sums up the frustration of a night in which the team pushed and pushed, but never found a way to change the scoreline, or the course of the tournament.