Atletico Nacional Medellin vs Deportivo La Guaira Predictions

Thursday’s Copa Libertadores second qualification round, second leg clash sees Colombians Atletico Nacional doing battle with visitors Deportivo La Guaira. The hosts will be looking to build on the 1-0 lead they established in last week’s first leg.

Whilst it wasn’t a vintage performance in Venezuela last week, Atletico Nacional got the job done and now find themselves in pole position. They controlled most of the match and did almost all of the attacking, but lacked a little incision in the final third, with the goal taking 70 minutes to eventually come. Nonetheless, Atletico were never really threatened at any point of the match and if they can control Thursday’s game in the same manner, they’ll have no issues in progressing.

Atletico came into this tie as huge favourites to win it and they certainly cannot afford any slip-ups, with making the group stage a minimum expectation. Unbeaten in 5 matches, morale is high prior to kick-off and having won a staggering 13 of their last 16 Libertadores home games, those taking to the pitch will be confident in advancing to the final qualification round in style.

Meanwhile, if Deportivo La Guaira were to have any real hope of causing an upset, they had to bring something with them to defend from their home leg. Now trailing, the visitors face an almost impossible task to turn the tie on its head and their showing last week doesn’t suggest they’ll be able to pose enough of an attacking threat to do so.

Travelling to a notoriously difficult place to visit, Deportivo’s terrible away form is also a real concern. The visitors have not won any of their last 5 games played on enemy territory and having failed to score in 3 of said fixtures and lost 4 of them, it’s fair to say their prospects don’t look bright coming into Thursday’s clash.

Ultimately, there looked to be no way Atletico Nacional were going to lose this tie over two legs and now in the lead, it’s almost impossible to envisage them throwing it away on home soil against such an inferior opponent. Man for man, the Colombians are by far a better team than the visitors and that should translate into what we see in the 90 minutes.

All things considered, backing Atletico Nacional to win to nil looks the way to play as far as the betting goes and is something we’re more than happy to do with maximum confidence. They’ve conceded just 1 goal in their last 5 games and with Deportivo having looked so blunt when the sides met last week, a 2-0 home win could well be on the cards.