Rio Ave and Estrela da Amadora played out a 3:3 draw in the Primeira Liga on Monday evening. We had backed the hosts at 48 per cent confidence, but the match took a different shape. Estrela controlled the tempo while Rio Ave found the angles they needed.
Ianis Stoica opened the scoring for the visitors in the twenty-first minute. Francisco Petrasso answered before the break in the forty-fifth, and there was a shift in momentum. and here's the thing — the first half ended level despite Estrela's dominance.
Abraham Marcus restored Estrela's lead early in the second period. Roland Galcik pulled Rio Ave back into it within minutes, and the pattern continued. Marcus scored again in the sixty-first minute, but Jalen Blesa converted a penalty in the seventy-eighth to complete the turnaround.
Estrela held sixty-two per cent possession and registered one hundred and six attacks to Rio Ave's seventy-three. The visitors created three big chances against two, and their expected goals figure stood at 1.87 compared with 1.23. Rio Ave's six shots on target at fifty-five per cent accuracy told a different story.
The result leaves Estrela in sixth place with ten points from six games, undefeated but unable to break their draw streak. Rio Ave remain in sixteenth with four points, and this result breaks their recent run of heavy defeats.