The match was played at the Estadio Monumental in Lima, Peru. Originally scheduled at the Estadio Nacional in Santiago, Chile, the match had to be relocated to the Estadio Monumental in Lima due to protests in Chile. It was the first final to be played as a single match at a neutral venue chosen in advance, replacing the home-and-away format used from 1960 to 2018.[5] The second leg of the 2018 final was played at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid, Spain, the first final held outside of South America, after security concerns cancelled the original second leg at the stadium of River Plate in Buenos Aires.[6]
This was the fourth Copa Libertadores final held in Lima, after the play-off of the 1971 finals and the first legs of the 1972 and 1997 finals, all matches played at the Estadio Nacional.[7]
Original host selection
In 2016, CONMEBOL proposed that the Copa Libertadores final be played as a single match instead of over two legs.[8] It was only on 23 February 2018 that CONMEBOL was able to confirm that the 2019 final onwards would be played as a single match at a venue chosen in advance,[9] and on 11 June 2018 set the date of the match as 23 November 2019.[2] With the Argentine and Brazilian cities banned by CONMEBOL for this bidding,[10] three national associations had officialized interest in hosting the 2019 Copa Libertadores final.[11][12]
Bidding Venues for the 2019 Copa Libertadores final
Large street protests in Chile began on 14 October 2019, involving millions of protestors and resulting in the deaths of at least 24 people.[15] The protests led to safety concerns for the teams that would play the match and their travelling fans, despite this CONMEBOL still considered Santiago as the venue.[16] Eventually, after a meeting between CONMEBOL president with the presidents of both finalists and those of their football associations and the Football Federation of Chile president, on 5 November it was announced that the match was relocated to the Estadio Monumental in Lima, Peru, due to the ongoing unrest in Chile.[3][17]
Show
Before the match, the Argentineans Fito Páez and Tini Stoessel, the Colombian Sebastián Yatra and the Brazilian Anitta, who performed "Y dale alegría a mi corazón" by Páez. Then two bands identified with the finalist teams participated: Turf, for River Plate and Gabriel o Pensador, for Flamengo.[18]
The final is played as a single match at a pre-selected venue, with the higher-seeded team designated as the "home" team for administrative purposes.[19] If scores are level after full time, 30 minutes of extra time would be played. If still tied after extra time, a penalty shoot-out would be used to determine the winner.[20][21]
Match
Summary
River Plate opened the match in a 2–3–3–2 formation, which allowed their midfield to dominate. This tactic gained them an early lead, when Rafael Santos Borré scored in the 14th minute from a cross by Ignacio Fernández. River Plate had numerous chances for a second goal in the first half: Borré missed an opportunity by inches, Nicolás De La Cruz missed a good chance in the 21st minute, and Exequiel Palacios had two long-distance shots that nearly went in. However River Plate were unable to capitalise on these opportunities, so at half time the score remained 1-0.[22][23]
River Plate continued to dominate in the early part of the second half. However, Flamengo began to assert themselves on the counter-attack, with Gabriel Barbosa and Éverton Ribeiro nearly scoring while Borré was down with an injury. Flamengo substitute Diego was brought on for Gerson in the 66th minute, and he helped Flamengo turn the match around. Diego began several counter-attacks, including in the 75th minute when he linked up with Bruno Henrique Pinto and Gabriel. The score was still 1-0 in the 89th minute, with River Plate seeking to finish off the game, when Flamengo's Arrascaeta won the ball from Lucas Pratto in his own half, and started a counter-attack by passing to Bruno Henrique. Henrique dribbled the ball down the left wing and cut inside; near the opposing goal, he passed the ball to Arrascaeta, who avoided the goalkeeper's challenge to pass to an open Gabriel who scored a tap-in to tie the game.[24]
Three minutes later (in the second minute of injury time), Diego launched a deep pass from his own half that both River Plate centre backs missed. This allowed Gabriel to score again from a half volley, giving Flamengo a 2–1 lead. The sudden reversal of fortune caused tempers to flare: Palacios kicked Bruno Henrique in the 95th minute, for which he received a red card. Gabriel Barbosa sarcastically applauded the referee in response; he also received a red card. The match ended shortly thereafter. After being behind for most of the match, Flamengo emerged as last minute champions, winning their second Copa Libertadores title.[22][23]
Maximum of three substitutions, with a fourth allowed in extra time.
Post-match
Flamengo won their second Copa Libertadores and earned the right to represent CONMEBOL at the 2019 FIFA Club World Cup in Qatar. Jorge Jesus became the second non-South American manager to win the Copa Libertadores, following Mirko Jozić's 1991 championship for Colo-Colo.[27] The club went on to clinch the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A title a day later after the second-place team, Palmeiras, was mathematically eliminated from reaching the title.[28] Flamengo became the first Brazilian club to earn a league and continental double since Santos did in 1963. The victory celebrations in Rio de Janeiro attracted tens of thousands of fans as the players rode in an open-top bus, but ended with clashes between riot police and spectators.[29][30]
In Brazil, the match was broadcast by Rede Globo with commentary provided by Luiz Roberto, Júnior and Walter Casagrande, in addition to Fox Sports on cable television with commentary provided by Nivaldo Prieto, Edmundo and Paulo Vinicius Coelho. The original broadcast received an Ibope Rating of 38 points in the 15 largest metropolitan regions in Brazil, reaching a total of 65.7 million viewers, with almost half of the television sets in Brazil watching the Globo broadcast.[32]
