Racing Club took three points from Sarmiento de Junín at the Estadio Presidente Perón on Friday night, closing out a 3-1 victory in the Argentine Professional League's Clausura round ten. The hosts' record of five wins, six draws and five losses in sixteen outings kept them eight points clear of the relegation zone, while Sarmiento's six victories and nine defeats left them in eleventh place with nineteen points.
It was Racing who opened the account, Gonzalo Escudero finding the net in the twenty-third minute before Julián Marabel doubled the lead three minutes later. Adrián Martínez added a third at the start of the second half, and Ignacio Rodríguez sealed the result late on, though Sarmiento had already taken a yellow card through Juan Manuel Insaurralde in the thirty-ninth minute to mark their first disciplinary trouble.
The match shifted shape after half-time, with both sides making changes around the hour mark. Racing brought on Herrera and Contrera together in the fifty-eighth minute, while Escudero was withdrawn in the seventy-eighth after his goal. Sarmiento responded with three substitutions in quick succession — Martínez, Pasquini and Mavilla — as they tried to find a way back into the game, but Adrián Martínez received a booking for the hosts in the sixty-third minute and Matías Martínez went off in the eighty-first.
Racing controlled the tempo without needing to dominate possession, settling into a rhythm that Sarmiento could not disrupt. They completed 341 passes against 175 from their visitors, sent 89 into the final third compared to 33, and created four big chances while Sarmiento managed just one. The away side did win more aerial duels — twenty-nine to eighteen — and made 41 clearances against 23, but their one shot on target from seven attempts told its own story.
By then things had come to a head, and Racing carried the side through a period where Sarmiento ran out of legs. Rodríguez's goal in the eightieth minute was followed by further changes on both sides, with Ortegoza and Lodico brought on for the visitors in the eighty-fifth minute, and Adrián Martínez finally replaced by Díaz in stoppage time. Salle picked up a yellow card for Sarmiento in the eighty-third minute, rounding out a match where the hosts held every card they were dealt.
