Pablo Sánchez: “I only value the draw because we secured it at the end”

Pablo “Vitamina” Sánchez did not try to dress up Olimpia’s late draw with Guaraní. The coach said the point had value only because his team rescued it in the closing minutes of the latest edition of Paraguay’s “oldest clásico.”

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I only value the draw because we secured it at the end

Sánchez praised Guaraní’s defensive plan and said it tied up Olimpia’s intentions for much of the match. Although Olimpia controlled territory and possession in the first half, he said the team created almost nothing. He pointed to only two isolated opportunities, a left-footed effort from Fernando Cardozo that went wide and an attempted cross from Romeo Benítez that the goalkeeper quickly stopped.

The coach said Olimpia became slow in building attacks and ran out of ways to hurt a well-organised opponent. He compared the match with other games in which Olimpia has faced a similar pattern, but noted that the team usually creates a persistent sense that a goal could come at any moment. Against Guaraní, he said, that feeling was missing.

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First, it is worth highlighting that the opponent produced a very good defensive plan through organisation, and although we dominated the field and possession in the first half, we created nothing and were unable to hurt the opponent.

After Olimpia conceded in the first half, Sánchez changed the structure and accepted greater defensive risk. The team played with two No. 9 strikers and sought to use the height and aerial ability of Tiago, Gabriel and later Hugo. Sánchez said the staff knew that this approach could expose the team to counterattacks and dangerous transitions.

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We were left with that slowness in building the game, and we ran out of tools to do damage.

He said Guaraní did not create many transition chances, producing one dangerous move late in the match before Olimpia equalised. For Sánchez, that timing was the main reason the draw could be considered valuable.

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We had to make decisions at halftime to create a team willing to take risks, and we knew we would play in a more complicated way.