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In a historical day, a Paraguayan professional rugby team will play host to a Colombian professional rugby team for the first time. The Olímpia Lions will have home advantage in Ciudad del Este against Los Cafeteros Pro in a round five fixture of SLAR 2022.
The match will be the third between the Olímpia Lions and Los Cafeteros Pro. The homeside go into the game with a 2-0 record against the Colombians. Both matches were in SLAR 2021 and both were high scoring with 71 points scored in game one and 84 points scored in game two.
The Olímpia Lions go in to the match with a hybrid Paraguayan-Argentine line-up. Argentine hooker Mariano Muntaner joins Paraguayan props Daniel Cabral and Luis Enrique Quinteros in the front-row. The second-row will see Argentine Alvaro Biscay in combination with Paraguayan Mariano Garcete while Argentines Mariano Romanini, Federico Simondi, and captain Ignacio Gandini complete the forwards.
Five Argentines start in the backs. Scrum-half Ignacio Inchauspe joins Paraguayan Sebastián Urbieta in the halves. Juan González is the other Paraguayan back named on the run-on team. Promising Argentine finishers Matías Sauze, and Julián Quetglas join González in the back-three.
Los Cafeteros Pro are also a combination of two nationalities; the team contains three Colombians and twelve Argentines. Prospective Puma Javier Corvalán starts at loose head as one of seven Argentines in the starting forwards.
Colombia one starting forward will be Diver Ceballos. Now in his third season of SLAR, the former Peñarol player has been a stand-out this season not only for Los Cafeteros Pro but also of all back-rowers across the league. Ceballo’s one-on-one against Ignacio Gandini will be a feature match-up of the fixture.
Eliseo Morales continues at scrum-half. He will play inside Julián Hernández who has proven to be a player to follow closely in SLAR 2022. Fellow Argentines Manuel Alfaro, and Valentín Fernández start in the mid-field with Franco Giudice captaining from fullback.
Los Cafeteros Pro’s two starting Colombians are the wingers. Andrés Álvarez and Alain Altahona continue the pattern from SLAR 2021 wherein Colombian wingers were able to get regular game time.
With 13 competition points to their name, the Olímpia Lions enter on the present position of third in SLAR 2022. This places them ahead of Los Jaguares XV who are in fourth. A win for the Olímpia Lions will see them overtake either Peñarol or Selknam who are both on 14 points and will play eachother also on Friday.
Los Cafeteros Pro are chasing their second win of SLAR 2022. They earned their first two weeks ago in a strong showing against Os Cobras. They were narrowly denied a win last weekend against Selknam. In short, Cafeteros Pro are on the up and the Olímpia Lions will need to be on their game.
TEAMS
OLÍMPIA LIONS
1 Daniel Cabral, 2 Mariano Muntaner, 3 Luis Enrique Quinteros, 4 Alvaro Biscay, 5 Mariano Garcete, 6 Federico Simondi, 7 Ignacio Gandini (capt.), 8 Mariano Romanini, 9 Ignacio Inchauspe, 10 Sebastián Urbieta, 11 Juan González, 12 Estanislao Arrias, 13 Francisco Díez, 14 Matías Sauze, 15 Julián Quetglas
Replacements: 16 Conrado Quintana, 17 Ezequiel Reyes, 18 Estefano Aranda, 19 Agustín Toth, 20 Ariel Nuñez, 21 Facundo Villalba 22 Gianfranco Parodi, 23 Nicolás Hogg
CAFETEROS PRO
1 Javier Corvalán, 2 Alvaro Llaver, 3 Tomás Bertot, 4 Gregório Hernández, 5 Federico Lavanini, 6 José Ignacio Gálvez, 7 Diver Ceballos, 8 Felipe Puertas, 9 Eliseo Morales, 10 Julián Hernández, 11 Andrés Álvarez, 12 Manuel Alfaro, 13 Valentín Fernández, 14 Alain Altahona, 15 Franco Giudice (capt.)
Replacements: 16 Boris Wenger, 17 Diego Posada Giraldo, 18 Brian González, 19 Eliseo Fourcade, 20 Joaquín Sánchez, 21 Bryan Enrique Guzmán, 22 Marcos Amorisa, 23 Juan David Agudelo
Date: Friday, April 08, 2022
Venue: Estadio 03 de Febrero (Ciudad del Este, Paraguay)
Kickoff: 9:00pm (Asunción), 10:00pm (Buenos Aires), 8:00pm (Bogotá)
Referee: Damian Schneider (Argentina)
Assistant Referees: Raimundo Fuenzalida (Chile); Cauã Ricardo (Brazil)
TMO: Nehuen Jauri Rivero (Argentina)
Broadcast: ESPN (America Latina), ESPN (Brazil), STAR +
HISTORICAL RESULTS
2021-05-01 – Olímpia Lions 51, Cafeteros Pro 33 (Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo, Uruguay)
2021-04-04 – Olímpia Lions 39, Cafeteros Pro 32 (Estadio Nacional, Santiago, Chile)
