Continuing The Chase?

Looking ahead to this afternoon's game against Estudiantes as both teams make substantial changes to their lineups from their last game.

Bernardello will be absent from Newell's, suspended due to yellow card accumulation. This would seem to be a major blow to the team from Rosario, but Estudiantes have been hit even harder. Diego Galván, Matías Sánchez, Juan Sebastián Verón, Gastón Fernández, and Mauro Boselli are expected to sit this one out. Not having Verón to deal with makes the exclusion of Bernardello lose some of it's sting, but Zapata will still have to play well for Los Leprosos to get the points needed to even dream of continuing the chase for the title, or even just for the honor of ending up in the top five at the end of the 19 game Apertura.

NEWELL'S: Sebastián Peratta; Pablo Aguilar, Rolando Schiavi, Juan Insaurralde, Germán Ré; Gastón Machín, Ariel Zapata, Leonel Vangioni; Leandro Torres; Diego Torres y Cristian Fabbiani.

DT: Fernando Gamboa.

ESTUDIANTES: Mariano Andújar; Marcos Angeleri, Agustín Alayes, Christian Cellay, Juan Manuel Díaz; Enzo Pérez, Iván Moreno y Fabianesi, Rodrigo Braña, Leandro Benítez; Juan Manuel Salgueiro y José Luis Calderón.

DT: Leonardo Astrada.

Referee: Carlos Maglio.

While Newell's host, Tigre and San Lorenzo will be on the road this weekend. Tigre play at Huracan in a game that starts 20 minutes after the Newell's/Estudientes match. Even on the road, this should be a very winable game for Tigre, so no help there.

Much the same with San Lorenzo, as they play Racing Club tomorrow. Racing have been anything but good over the last couple of seasons, so I'm not expecting much from them now.

Newell's also have to worry about Boca Jrs, who host Rosario Central on Sunday. As poorly as Boca have been playing of late they are still only 1 point behind Newell's. Central has been playing even worst, so I'm not expecting anything but a Boca win here, but this is one of those few times where I'm actually hoping Los Canallas can pull off an upset. Two reasons for that, really: Boca losing could give Newell's some breathing room, and secondly I don't want to see Central relegated, which, if they keep playing as poorly as they have, is a strong possibility.