Junior finished second in the regular season and head Group B with América de Cali, Deportivo Pereira and Deportivo Cali.
Barranquilla’s Roberto Meléndez stadium, which has space for sixty thousand spectators, will be the venue of Saturday’s opening match at 6:20pm local time.
Junior and Cali have been pretty much equal in recent encounters. The Barranquilla outfit were the better side in this season’s game, winning 1-2 in Cali.
Not surprisingly, and also considering the fact that Cali only just made it into this round, Junior are clear favorites to win this game.
At 8:15pm Colombian time the action moves from the coast to Medellín, where Independiente host regular season winners Deportes Tolima in Group A’s opener.
Interestingly, it will be their second clash in one week as the two sides also met on the last match day in the regular season. At this point, both teams were already through but Tolima remained focused enough to secure the top spot with a 2-0 win.
Other than that one defeat, DIM have been doing well in recent games and might cause Tolima the necessary trouble. The away side meanwhile lost their consistency in recent matches but this could be blamed on the fact that they were already certain of a place in this round.
Overall, the match at Medellín’s Atanasio Girardot stadium is hard to call and could end in a draw.
