Aldosivi controls both boxes, downs Banfield 3-1 behind Vombergar brace

Aldosivi needed an afternoon like this one. At José María Minella, the team sitting near the bottom of the table beat Banfield 3-1 with a formula as simple as it was effective: an own goal, a header, and another one to seal it, all between the 33rd and 51st minutes. Banfield pulled one back from the penalty spot right at the start of the second half, but never came close to flipping a match that got away from them on a play they never saw coming.

The first goal arrived in the 33rd minute, and it wasn't even scored by an Aldosivi forward: Renzo Malanca, a Banfield defender, turned the ball into his own net amid sustained home pressure that had already been knocking on the door. Eight minutes later, right before halftime, the name that would end up being the star of the show made his mark: Andrés Vombergar, who in the 41st minute headed home a cross from Martín García to make it 2-0 and send both teams into the break with the match all but decided.

Banfield showed some life as soon as the second half kicked off. A minute after the restart, VAR reviewed a handball by Joaquín Pombo inside the box and awarded a penalty. Matías Hernández converted it in the 50th minute to make it 2-1, raising hopes of an open contest. That hope lasted exactly sixty seconds: in the 51st minute, Vombergar struck again, again with his head, this time off a cross from Tomás Fernández, notching his second goal of the afternoon and sealing the final 3-1 scoreline. That put an end to any real chance of a visiting comeback, though the match kept swinging back and forth until the finish, with Aldosivi coming close to a fourth on a shot from Andrés Chávez in stoppage time.

A dominance the numbers back up

Possession ended up nearly split, but Aldosivi was clearly the better side in both penalty areas, generating more attacking volume and turning it into shots on target. Banfield, meanwhile, had fewer clear-cut chances despite registering two big opportunities on the stat sheet.

The xG generated in the match, an in-house estimate based on shot location, gives Banfield 2.105 against Aldosivi's 1.259. In other words, the home side won with less expected danger than its rival, a gap explained by Vombergar's sharp finishing on the only two chances he needed to score.

That number runs counter to what we published in our preview. We had projected a tight match, with 31% odds for Aldosivi, 33% for a draw, and 36% in favor of Banfield, along with expected goals of 1.03 for the home side and 1.12 for the visitors. The result ended up being the exact opposite of what was forecast: Aldosivi, the side given the least chance of winning, was the one that walked away with all three points, and clearly so.

What it means in the standings

In Group B, the win lets Aldosivi pick up points in a tournament that had been rough going so far: the club climbs to 5 points from 8 matches played, still in the relegation zone. Banfield, for its part, stays on 7 points from 8 matches as well, with a goal difference of minus 5 that reflects an uneven campaign. Just 2 points separate the two clubs, though neither is fighting, for now, near the top of the table.

For Aldosivi, the match stands as proof that the team can do damage up front when it finds the right crosses: both of Vombergar's goals came from the same recipe, a ball into the box and a header to finish. For Banfield, on the other hand, the penalty converted right at the start of the second half wasn't enough to turn around a match that had slipped away in just eight minutes of the first half.