Barracas Central held Argentinos Juniors to a goalless draw at the Estadio Claudio Chiqui Tapia on Sunday evening in the Clausura round eight of the Argentine Professional League. Both sides finished level on points after ninety minutes, though the visitors' standing in the table remained comfortable while the hosts stayed in the lower half. To be fair, neither team created much that would have changed the outcome.
The match settled into a rhythm quickly, with the first yellow card arriving at the quarter-hour mark when Norberto Briasco was cautioned. Sebastián Prieto followed at thirty-three minutes, and then came a cluster of bookings in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh minutes as both Francisco Fabián Álvarez and Damián Martínez joined the list. And here's the thing — by then it was clear this was going to be a physical encounter rather than an open game.
Argentinos Juniors controlled possession at fifty-eight percent while Barracas Central managed forty-two, but the statistics tell only part of the story. Both sides created one big chance each, and neither goalkeeper faced a situation that required a decisive intervention. The visitors registered three shots on target against two for the hosts, yet the scoreline reflected the balance of the match more accurately than any single metric could.
Substitutions began at the hour mark when Emiliano Sebastian Viveros Mereles came on for Barracas Central, followed closely by Hernan Lopez at sixty-eight minutes. The hosts doubled their changes at seventy-two minutes, bringing on both Norberto Briasco and Ivan Tapia, though the latter had been playing since the start. Gonzalo Maroni received a yellow card at eighty minutes before being substituted himself a minute later.
The final substitution came at ninety-three minutes when Damián Martínez was taken off, bringing the total bookings for the match to seven yellow cards. Barracas Central finished ninth with twenty-one points from sixteen games, while Argentinos Juniors remained third on twenty-nine points. Things came to a head only in the sense that neither side could find a way through, and the points were shared without controversy.
