Sunday, October 18, 2009

La Lepra Stake Claim In Congested Title Race

After nine rounds it is quite apparent that this Apertura is up for grabs. San Lorenzo, with a win over Rosario Central, slide into first place with 19 points. A single point behind them there's Colón de Santa Fe, Vélez Sarsfield, and Argentinos Juniors. And then there's Newell's a further point back, along with Estudiantes La Plata, Independiente, and Banfield.

Estudiantes could have inched ahead of Los Cuervos if they could have managed a win over Newell's, but, playing at El Coloso, that wasn't meant to be.

Boghossian opened the scoring for La Lepra in the 28th minute with a beautiful header. Despite this goal, I still have to question starting him rather than Formica. Boghossian does head the ball well, and has the size to compliment that ability, but it seems to be all he's good at.

The 1-0 lead didn't last long, as Leandro Benitez scored a mere two minutes later to tie the game. Peratta did manage to get a glove on it, and almost deflected the shot wide.

The final goal came after Sánchez Prette was fouled in the Estudiantes penalty area. The veteran defender Schiavi was called on to take the spot kick, which he did telegraph a bit, which allowed Los Pincharratas keeper Damián Albil to block, but only to give up a huge rebound directly back to Schiavi, who made no mistake with his second effort.

Up next is an away game with Vélez Sarsfield on Saturday, October 24th.

2 comments:

Jeremy said...

Boghossian stays in because he's more of a 9, and Formica is not. He's tall and causes a lot of headaches for the other team when he gets to use his height. Plus he defends set pieces well.

That said, I'd like to see him not disappear for long stretches anymore, although he did make his presence known most of this match.

Formica plays basically the same role as Sanchez Prette and could probably fill the other striker spot as well, but Achucarro has that one sewn up for now.

David Phillips said...

True enough, Jeremy. And I know there are reasons for holding Formica out of the starting 11, but that's material for a whole post... which I've had fermenting in my head ever sense I posted this one.

Hopefully I'll get to putting it together tonight.