Independiente and Racing played a classic from Avellaneda with many condiments but no winner. It was 1 to 1 with goals from Martín Cauteruccio and Matías Rojas, after a penalty widely discussed by the locals, both in the first half, where he spent the vast majority of emotions. The second part was over.
The Red thus added its tenth game without wins in the League, which has it 24th out of 28 teams with 10 points. Racing, which is playing this Thursday for the Copa Libertadores, was left with 18 units and further and further away from the lead.
The classic was played in a truly atypical context, mainly due to the historic institutional crisis that Red is going through after the resignation of Fabián Doman to the presidency and the consequent advance of the macrismo on the club, in addition to the debut of Ricardo Zielinski in the bank. The Academy added for its part the weak football present of those led by Fernando Gago while the weather, as if that were not enough, made its contribution with the rain.
The first minutes of the classic were a concert of errors from one side and the other, which can be summed up in some game passages by Ayrton Costa and Matías Rojas. The man from Independiente, a defender himself, sent clubs in three plays almost in a row -he gave away a corner and scored a couple of simple clearances directly to the side- that he tried to hide with successive smiles, although without success. The one from Racing, 10 and a figure of those in the light blue and white shirt, also began the match with the boots changed and added striking errors, both technical and tactical, unworthy of his exquisite left foot.
Cauteruccio, double hero
Although the ball passed through the air for a long time, from header to header, things settled down as the minutes passed. The one who settled the fastest was Independiente, who transformed his own nerves and those of his people into intensity to stay with the divided and, thus, advance in the field. In any case, Racing had the first danger, after a bad start by Rodrigo Rey, Hauche’s header and a save by Cauteruccio on the line.
The heroic intervention of the veteran attacker had its continuity later. At 19 minutes, The Uruguayan was encouraged to rewrite the moral that teaches that the goals that are lost in one goal are received in the other: for him, the goals that are saved in his goal are celebrated in the other. The play of the 1-0 of Independiente It began with a great escape from Cuero between two, center of the very interesting Matías Giménez and wise resolution of Cauteruccio, who stopped it with his chest at the door of the area and took a cornered and unattackable shot for Arias while the Racing defenders looked on.
The goal was a great relief for Rojo and his people, who stretched out for a few more minutes in which the local team dominated a shaken Racing. Cauteruccio was so enlarged that he did not go through the stadium tunnel and he even dared to throw a luxurious dribble that left Piovi painted and unleashed the “olé” of the publicsomething that has not been abundant lately for the Libertadores de América.
Gago changed and Racing improved
Gago did not take too long to rearrange the pieces and he sent the kid Áviles closer to the central defense to allow the rise of his full-backs Mura and Gabriel Rojas, more freed from defensive concerns.
Something like 25 minutes took Racing to impose the dominating style that has done them so much good in recent times and the tie reached 35, just as Gago thought. Gómez hit a ball that seemed like an adventure but very precise to find the Mura getting into the area with the luck (for him) that Vallejo marked him: the kid pushed him from behind with both hands and the referee did not hesitate in signaling a penalty, although it was not clear if it was inside the area although both players ended up well inside it. The VAR ratified the decision of Falcón Pérez and the Paraguayan Rojas broke Rey’s goal for the 1-1.
What came after halftime was truly forgettable. In that shortage, Independiente ended up in a better position… For two simple reasons: looked for it more than Racing, despite the disparity in football resources between the two, and above all because he survived the chaos in which he came out to play the classic and was even able to enjoy the victory for a few minutes.
The great controversy of the afternoon
El Rojo will also have the consolation of having felt harmed by the penalty taken in favor of Racing. Iván Marcone was very forceful before the television cameras: “When there is an intention from outside, that the result of the match has to be one… I don’t know if it is (Dario) Herrera who was in charge of the VAR, but he will be calm in his house because he complied with what he he needed. So nothing, against that is very difficult. Today we saw that there was something that was unfair, and what do we do with justice like that”shot the captain of Independiente.