The Sleeping Giant Awakens. Newell's vs Boca Jrs

Boca Jrs proved too much for Newell's today, taking the home team to task with a 4-2 win. In the 4 games prior Boca had only managed 3 points from 3 draws.

The first goal went to Boca during the 5th minute, coming on a counter attack after a Newell's corner was struck too hard, sailing beyond the box and from there Boca quickly took it up field and scored. The entire play consisted of two long passes, and a cross followed by a sliding finish by Ricardo Noir.

Newell's evened the score after a questionable penalty call. There were two Boca players on when he broke into the penalty area. There was some shirt pulling involved, but nothing out of the ordinary. Rolando Schiavi converted the penalty at 21 minutes.

Boca took the lead again in the 62th minute, once again off a nice cross, this time with a header by Lucas Viatri.

82nd minute, Newell's tied the game from a bit of a scramble that resulted from a free kick when Juan Insaurralde found the back of the net, but only to have Nicolás Gaitán of Boca score their third during the 88th, and a fourth from Viatri no more than half a minute later.

The video feed I watched was small, about a tenth the size of my monitor. Half the time I couldn't tell what the color of the player's jerseys are. During the second half the shadows started taking over the field making it that much harder to follow the play.

Then there's the problem of the constant buffering as my rather slow computer tried to catch up to the feed.

Thanks to close up replays, I do have to note that the referee in this game wasn't bias, but neither was he any good. He called fouls when there were none, and let a few go that should have been called.

Diego Torres had fine game first half, but the only thing notable about his play in the second half was a hard tackle which earned him a well deserved yellow card. Riquelme had a decent game, he was involved in at least 3 of Boca's goals.

As per usual in an Argentine match, there was plenty of singing by the fans. Newell's may be at home, but I've got to call the songs a 50/50 split. Not surprizing, Boca are one of the teams with the biggest following in the world.