Boca beat Tigre 2-0 as a visitor, with goals from Darío Benedetto and Luis Vázquez, and beyond the defeat, the locals qualified for the quarterfinals, placing third in Zone B.
The “Matador” will almost certainly face River Plate, whose second place in Zone A is practically assured. Sunday, he has very short-lived mathematical chances of beating him (23 units, +4).
Boca will also have to wait for this Sunday’s games to find out who will be its rival in the playoffs, since it will face the third party in group A, a place disputed by Newell’s, Argentinos Juniors, Defensa y Justicia, Gimnasia de La Plata and Sarmiento.
Boca, which at times had some glimpses of fluidity, more because of its individualities than because of its team play, beat an unknown Tiger, as if its soccer players weighed the responsibility of what was being played before some 25,000 fans. that took over the José Dellagiovanna stadium.
Those led by Battaglia maintained their visiting streak, winning 4 games and drawing 2, showing another face in relation to the local team, where they only won one game at Bombonera and the rest at Amalfitani.
Helped by the other results, the local public celebrated the same, beyond today’s poor performance and saluting the good performance throughout the tournament, after only returning this year to the First Division. That’s why the disappointment beyond the celebration, due to the weak performance.
To this was added that Tigre added the seventh game that started losing and could not turn around, according to the statistics of this contest.
It reached Boca with bursts from Villa and Benedetto, Medina’s mobility, Aranda’s solvency at the bottom and Rossi’s security.
In front of a packed stadium, Boca put on high pressure but Tigre also looked higher since Marinelli stood up as a libero outside his area in the first touches. In the first half hour Tigre and Boca lent each other the ball in the middle and at times the two threatened to attack each other.
Benedetto took his traditional place as center forward, Zeballos settled on the right sector of the Xeneize attack, while Villa positioned himself as a left winger. While Molinas was located behind the Colombian, but doing the diagonal, just like Medina did on the right.
In the first few minutes the match was cut short by a series of fouls committed by both teams, which led Echavarría to show the first yellow card for a local footballer.
As the minutes passed, the duel between Villa and Lucas Blondel became interesting as the Colombian sought to overcome one of the interesting full-backs he showed this season in Argentine soccer.
Later it was Boca who began not only to have the ball but also to bring danger. A shot from Zeballos, another from Benedetto and a header from the youthful Aranda that Marinelli saved were the clearest.
In this scenario, the locals had their deepest arrival in a pass from Menossi that left Protti alone and Rossi put his chest to avoid the goal. After 42 minutes, after an error by the local goalkeeper, against a center by Figal, Villa quickly sent a center that “Pipa” sent into the net.
In the second half, both teams maintained the position of lending each other the ball and the first arrival came in the 8th minute when Figal blocked a header from Protti that Magnín was unable to head in on the rebound.
With the entrance of Salvio for Villa, Zeballos moved to the left and “Toto” positioned himself on the right, with his eyes fixed on Luis Vazquez, who replaced Benedetto. And the changes paid off, since Medina stole the ball from Salomón, a Boca youth on loan at Tigre, he got into the area and served it to Vázquez who defined it very calmly.
Tigre approached with an overflow from Retegui that exposed the bad marks of Boca’s defense, Protti took it but Rossi blocked it by throwing his body on top of it and drifted to the corner. From the second goal and the changes, Boca lost control of the ball, Tigre took a step forward and had the ball approaching the area defended by Rossi.
About 40 minutes into the second half, while his players were looking for discount, Tigre’s fans began to sing against River Plate, beating the match in Núñez.
