Almirante Brown kept their Sixth place in the Primera Nacional Regular Season standings by seeing off Racing Córdoba 2-0 at home on Saturday. The result extends the hosts' unbeaten run to five games, though it was hardly a display of fluency. To be fair, the match had moments of tension that the scoreboard doesn't quite capture. By then, the visitors had already grown frustrated with a game they couldn't quite control.
M. Santiago opened the scoring in the 19th minute, capitalising on a moment of space that the visitors had given away too cheaply. Racing Córdoba responded and pressed forward, but it wasn't until the 83rd minute that J. Ibanez added a second goal to put the result beyond doubt. Two yellow cards — F. Taborda early on and L. Pascual before the break — kept the game honest, if not particularly entertaining.
The statistics tell a story of balanced opposition, if nothing else. Both sides held possession at 0.5, and the shots on target were identical at three apiece. What separated them was efficiency, and the fact that Almirante Brown worked their chances more cleanly. The visitors had more attacks — 61 to 53 — but many of those went nowhere. And here's the thing: three shots on target with one goal means chances went begging.
The substitutions told you everything you needed to know about how the game was managed. Almirante Brown brought on M. Gomez Pereyra at the restart, then layered changes through the second half with J. Lopez, I. Valsangiacomo, M. Abreliano, and J. Bay all coming on. Racing Córdoba responded with M. Santiago's substitution in the 73rd minute, but the damage was already done. The hosts kept their side in it, and eventually saw it out.
Almirante Brown now sit on 45 points from 28 games — 12 wins, 9 draws, 7 losses — while Racing Córdoba remain in 10th with 35 points. The gap between them is 10 points, and the visitors have not won since their 2-1 victory over San Telmo on July 26th. The hosts, meanwhile, have picked one up last week and two before that, building something steady if unspectacular.