Acassuso and El Boy met in the twenty-eighth round of the Primera Nacional on Saturday evening, and the visitors left with all three points after a 0:1 victory. The match finished at the Estadio Acassuso, where the home side held the ball for most of the ninety minutes but could not convert their dominance into a goal. El Boy absorbed pressure and found the net through a single error, then held on for the remainder of the fixture.
The decisive moment arrived in the fifty-second minute when L. Pioli turned the ball into his own net, and by then the game had already settled into its pattern. He was not under the brightest of lights when he played it, and the rebound found nothing but the back of the goal. That was the only shot on target that mattered, and it came from a home side that had registered just one attempt on goal up to that point.
Acassuso kept the ball, 63 per cent of possession, and launched 120 attacks compared with El Boy's 109. To be fair, the visitors were not there to dominate territory; they were looking for the one moment that would decide things. They managed two shots on target overall, and only one of them found the net — and it was the only one that counted.
Discipline was tested in patches, with five yellow cards distributed across both halves. L. Romero picked up the first booking in the fifth minute, and the game settled into a rhythm of substitutions and cautions from there. Acassuso brought on N. Acosta at the break, while El Boy made two changes together in the sixty-fourth minute before the home side responded with their own alterations.
The result keeps El Boy in twelfth place on 31 points, while Acassuso remain eighteenth with 23 points after 28 games. The visitors have now gone four matches without a win, drawing twice and losing twice, and they need the points badly if they are to climb. Acassuso's run of poor form continues, and they have lost three of their last four league fixtures.
We had tipped the home side for victory with 40 per cent confidence before kickoff, but the match went another way. What tipped it was not a tactical masterclass from El Boy, but a moment of carelessness in the box that they did not travel to make up the numbers for. Acassuso had the chances, but they ran out of legs in the final quarter and could not find the breakthrough.