This Thursday, March 16, Sporting Cristal eliminated Huracán from Argentina with the solitary goal from Irven Ávila in the 90+6 minute of the match. The rímense scorer found a ball in his last breath to fit it into the nets of the Argentine goalkeeper. With this result, Sporting Cristal secured a place in the group stage of the Copa Libertadores 2023.
Coming from the previous phase of the tournament, the rimenses will have to take over the tournament from pot 4 where they will receive great teams from pots 1 and 2, in addition to facing a rival from pot 3 that could be Alianza Lima or Melgar .
Although it is true that Conmebol does not allow teams from the same country to face each other in the group stage, in this case there would be an exception because Sporting Cristal comes from the previous phase of the tournament and since both Melgar and Alianza are in a different hype to theirs, the celestial ones could be drawn against rivals they know very well.