At the beginning of the Diego Martínez era, Boca Juniors drew goalless with Platense, where Sebastián Grazzini made his debut, on the first date of the League Cup.
Langoni, starter in Boca after a long time. Photobaires
Unlike what had happened in the summer friendlies, with narrow wins against Gimnasia y Tiro y Talleres, Xeneize looked very tied during the initial stage at the Ciudad de Vicente López Stadium, without offensive associations or dynamics along the length and, mainly, width of the field.
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In fact, in the context of a match lacking in emotions, like almost all of the matches on the first day of the competition, Calamar imposed conditions, dominating the game and being a little deeper.
From the outset, the locals warned with a header from captain Ignacio Vázquez, contained by Chiquito Romero, while a cross delivery from Raúl Lozano found a poor definition from Ciro Rius at the far post.
However, the clearest of the first 45 minutes was from Boca: Frank Fabra reached the bottom and sent a cross that found, through a clearance, Luis Advíncula, who tested Juan Pablo Cozzani. The goalkeeper’s rebound made a second play possible, but neither Miguel Merentiel nor Ezequiel Bullaude were able to define and thus the suffocation passed for the brown team, who could not get very close to Romero either (on the hour mark, Rolando Martínez, very advanced, made it 1 to 0, overridden with flag delay).
In the complement, which continued flat, Martínez moved the bench around 12 minutes, when he sent Edinson Cavani to the field, who after the tear in November had barely played a handful of minutes against the T, and Kevin Zenón, in his absolute debut dressed in blue and gold (Cristian Lema also had it, but from the beginning). One of those replaced was Merentiel, who in his last participation was about to open the scoring, but his shot, after a good collective play, went wide.
And the former Unión was very active on the left wing, always being an option in a team that was beginning to dominate and even encouraged the goal on the hour. One of Zenón’s virtues was repeatedly finding Fabra, very deep to attack and look for his teammates, although ultimately he could not associate with either Cavani (Oscar Salomón, on loan from Boca, got a tremendous advantage from him) or with Darío Benedetto, who played the last minutes.
With more drive and ambition than good football, the Ribera team sought to get closer to Cozzani, but could not even bother him in a second half that made it clearer and more poignant for the visitor, despite rounding off a debut that was far from what was expected. The last play of the night was perhaps the clearest: Pipa Benedetto enabled Zenón, who kicked over the top when he had Cavani entering with space and time to define.
On the next date, Boca will receive Sarmientofrom 7 p.m. on Thursday, February 1, on the San Lorenzo field, while Platense will visit on Wednesday, January 31 Defense and Justice (17 hours).