Santos lost 2-0 to Barcelona-EQU on a rainy night at Via Belmiro, on Tuesday. Peixe put out an abysmal performance as goals from Garcés and Pará (own goal) was enough to secure the victory for the visitors.
Barcelona showed their intent from the onset, causing several troubles for the home side, and drawing lots of mistakes from their defence.
Damián Díaz almost drew first blood in the opening 10 minutes, but was only able to force a save from Santos’s goalkeeper Joao Paulo.
However, as time passed Santos began to gain control in the game, and had several opportunities to open up the scoring. Madson, Marinho and Marcos Leonardo were all on mark, but could only force a save from Burrai.
But as the rain increased, Santos declined and Barcelona regained control and almost had a penalty, which was waved off by the referee.
Santos returned from the break with no improvement and eventually got punished. Garcés got on the end of Martinez’s pass, who took advantage of Peixe’s mistake to open up the scoring.
Few minutes later, Pará unfortunately deflected Damián Díaz’s shot into the back of the net to double the visitors’ advantage and mount more pressure on Santos to turn things around.
With over 20 minutes left to play, Santos ordeal was awful, as the home side couldn’t capitalize and even get a goal to bring hopes of a comeback. In the end, the match finished in a 2-0 defeat for the hosts.
Santos will be looking to bounce back when they face Boca Juniors next Tuesday. However, there are some Paulistão game sandwiched in-between and that would be perfect to get their confidence back on track. First they take on Novorizontino on Friday before a big game against Corinthians on Sunday.
