In the last four national championship finals that Liga de Quito has played in the last decade, they have scored only once at home. It was the goal converted by Anderson Julio that served to clinch the 2018 season title in the second leg, against Emelec in Casa Blanca. In the other three key matches in which the university club was the host (2015, 2019, 2020) he did not score and did not finish as champion.

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Last Sunday, in the first final match of the 2023 Pro League competition, the team led by Argentine Luis Zubeldía drew 0-0 with Independiente del Valle. Now their stage – where the League is so hard to score in games of national dedication – will be where the Lilies will finally try to return to the Olympics after two consecutive frustrations.

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Domestic attacking ineptitude

The lack of clean sheets, when he appeared at Casa Blanca (now called Rodrigo Paz Delgado) at the end of the national competition, began in 2015 when he drew 0-0 in the second leg with Emelec. For the electric team, winners 3-1 in the first game, the result represented the winning of the triple championship title, and for the League – with Zubeldía as coach – the first time that the opposing team took the Olympic round in that building, which was opened in 1997.

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In 2019, Liga de Quito started the competition for the first football title in Ecuador organized by Liga Pro against Delfín de Manta. In Casa Blanca, the match ended with a soporific 0-0, a procedure worthy of the taste of the coaches of each team: Pablo Repetto, for the lilies, and Fabián Bustos, for the whales. The result was repeated in Jocay, where Delfín beat the Quito team in stoppage time.

In 2020, the Liga de Quito made life miserable for Barcelona SC in Guayaquil with a 1-1 draw in the first game of that season closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. But without goals in Casa Blanca, in the final of the national competition, the game ended 0-0 and again the guest celebrated in the white stadium by taking penalties.

Lily’s goal in the four finals gives an average of 0.25 per game. If Liga de Quito continues this worrying trend against those from Valle, the crown could be decided from the penalty spot. (D)