There is super classic. There is a scorer. Is there a candidate? Boca, said Juan Carlos “Toto” Lorenzo, is Sports Always Win. He who wants chiches – he completed the sentence – should go to the toy store. AND Boca, as its history marks, won the game it had to win. The one with the classification. The one of tranquility. The passage to a one-on-one with River. From the hand of Edinson Cavani, Boca played a very cool game against Godoy Cruz, They took the victory 1-0 with ten men and on Sunday they will face their classic rival again in an all or nothing match.
On the cold afternoon of La Bombonera, Boca took a while to warm up. In raising the temperature of the game. The climate, it is true, lent itself to staying at home. But Boca could not miss the appointment. Forced to win to enter the playoffs without depending on anyone, he was virtually eliminated until the 40th minute of the first half, when Edinson Cavani scored a goal to put Boca in the quarterfinals.
Against an already classified rival (who still put their best assets on the field), Boca came out to play, strikingly, with the handbrake on. It was, at times, an apathetic, dull, bland team. No surprise, no game, no acceleration. With an unknown Zenón, who had almost no impact in attack, Boca repeated his lateral passes and center from the sides that, poorly executed, brought more danger in his own area (Tomba, on the counter, found spaces behind Equi and Pol Fernández) than in the Petroli arch.
Boca, to make matters worse, was left with one man less after 30 minutes of play: admonished from the 17th minute, Cristian Medina committed a childish foul on the side and Leandro Rey Hilfer sent him to the showers. A red that would change – for the better – the course of the game for Boca. Because Martínez’s team understood that it was time to press the accelerator. Because Racing won, because Lanús won, and because Boca, like River, could go to halftime out of everything, in sixth place.
The best of Boca’s victory
Martínez, from the bench, asked for more action. He asked Lema and Rojo to come forward to the middle of the field. To Advíncula and Saracchi to join the line of flyers. To Merentiel, who delayed a few meters to set up the game. And to Cavani, the clearest one with the ball, to go look for the area, because there was going to be something left for him. And the Matador, in the first one he had, did not forgive. As Martínez wanted, Advíncula climbed the court from the right, sent a crooked cross to the far post and Cavani, with the back of his foot, put it well away from the goalkeeper with a top technical gesture. Great goal.
Although he had secured first place, Godoy Cruz moved forward a few meters and Boca, pushed by his people, fought in the middle and sought to defend himself with the ball, as far away from Chiquito Romero as possible. But Tomba did not want to leave Boca in competition. That was, according to his coach, Godoy Cruz’s objective in La Bombonera: to finish off Boca so as not to cross him later in a hypothetical semi-final instance. And although he showed very little of the football that catapulted him to the top of Zone 2, he generated a handful of scoring situations. The clearest ones: a touch by Pino on the goal in the small area that Romero covered brilliantly and a shot by Cejas in injury time that burst the crossbar. The luck of the champion?
Cavani’s goal
At that point, Martínez had already rebuilt the line of four with the entry of Figal and had reinforced the middle to stop Tomba’s attacks, which were coming increasingly clearer, with greater danger. At that point, the fans were still paying attention to what was happening in the rest of the stadiums. Beyond what was happening with Lanús and Estudiantes in the South, Boca met Argentinos Juniors in the quarterfinals. But everything changed with the goal by Santiago Ramos Mingo – a former Boca, no less – that gave the victory to Defensa y Justicia, and relegated Xeneize to fourth place.
The closing of the game was full orchestra, with the fans singing against River and the Boca players literally working with their heads to maintain the advantage. Then, the team grew, the encouragement grew and the figure of Chiquito Romero grew to support Boca. And although a goal by Tomba left Xeneize out of everything (and promoted Racing, which defeated in Córdoba), no one thought about Godoy Cruz anymore. And the classic began to be played on the field, in the stands, in the atmosphere. In Riquelme’s box, who lived the end of the match as if it were what it was, in short: a final.
Boca won its final and is three steps away, 270 minutes away from shouting champion again. With Cavani on, with Martínez strengthened, with the enthusiasm intact. Boca is in, he’s still in the race. And we’ll have to see who stops it.