Tigre took all three points from the Nuevo Stadium on Friday evening, beating Racing Club 3:1 in the Clausura round three of the Argentine Professional League. The visitors had been chasing a clean-sheet run that came to an end in their last outing, but here they put the game to bed early with a goal in the nineteenth minute before Racing could settle into any rhythm.
P. Martinez opened the scoring for the hosts, and to be fair the home side had the better of the first quarter-hour. But then Tigre found their footing — M. Garay equalised from close range in the twenty-sixth minute after Racing lost their shape in midfield. The yellow card for M. Kranevitter at twenty-three showed the pressure was already building inside the Racing back line.
And here's the thing about the VAR incident in the forty-fourth minute. I. Russo's goal was cancelled, and Racing felt the pressure after that more than they let on. By then Tigre had got dragged out of position several times in the box, but they showed composure to retake the lead in the fifty-first minute when the referee finally allowed Russo's effort to stand.
D. Vergara made it 3:1 in the sixty-fifth minute, and Racing's substitutions told the story of a side running out of legs. G. N. Martirena Torres came on at half-time, M. Miljevic for fifty-eight, but by the time L. Diaz arrived in the seventy-sixth the result was beyond doubt. Two late yellow cards for A. Oviedo and I. Rodriguez rounded out a frustrating evening for the home fans.
The statistics tell you everything you need to know. Racing had 63 per cent possession and 109 attacks, but their expected goals sat at 0.53 with zero big chances created. Tigre managed just 0.78 expected goals from three big chances, yet converted when it mattered. Five shots on target each, but one side understood how to use them.
Racing remain eighth with 21 points from 16 games, while Tigre sit tenth on 20 points. Both sides have five games remaining in this phase, and the gap between them is now wider than anyone expected after Friday's performance. The table goes out of the window in these games, but Tigre showed they have the deeper squad to make it count.