Argentinos Juniors rallies past Aldosivi to grab top spot in Group B

The Diego Armando Maradona stadium was expecting a comfortable rout, but for nearly an hour it had to sweat through a scare instead. Aldosivi jumped ahead with an early goal, held on as long as it could, and ultimately fell 2-1 to Argentinos Juniors, who turned the match around in the second half in this Argentina's Primera División clash.

The home side came out looking for the game from the opening whistle, controlling possession and pushing forward down the flanks, but it was Aldosivi that struck first. In the 8th minute, Andres Vombergar finished with his left foot from the center of the box after an assist from Rodrigo Gonzalez, and although the referee reviewed the play on VAR, the call took three minutes to confirm the 0-1. The setback didn't change the flow of the match: Argentinos Juniors kept dominating the ball and creating chances, though without finding the reward. Before halftime it had two close calls: a shot from Gaston Veron that crashed off the crossbar in the 29th minute and another from Hernan Lopez that grazed the woodwork in the 32nd. The first half ended with the visitors ahead on the scoreboard despite the clear gap in play.

The second half opened with Argentinos Juniors shaking up the lineup (Matias Gimenez and Emiliano Viveros came on at the break), and the pressure paid off quickly. In the 53rd minute, Alan Lescano leveled the score with a direct free kick, curling a left-footed shot into the top right corner to make it 1-1. The home side didn't ease off, and twelve minutes later completed the turnaround: Gaston Veron headed home a cross from Viveros to make it 2-1 in the 65th minute. There was still time for more scares in the Aldosivi goal, with a shot from Viveros hitting the post in the 73rd minute and another from Lescano also striking the post in the 83rd, but the score held from there.

A dominance the numbers confirm

The stats make clear the underlying gap between the two sides over the 90 minutes, beyond the narrow scoreline.

With 24 shots to the visitors' 7 and 14 corners to just 2, Argentinos Juniors was clearly the more dominant side in terms of volume. The xG generated in the match, calculated after the fact based on shot locations, backs that up: 2.17 for the home side against 1.21 for the visitors, a figure Aldosivi inflated largely thanks to its converted goal and a handful of sharp chances, rather than any sustained control of the game.

The pre-match outlook had projected a comfortable edge for the home team: our projection published before kickoff gave Argentinos Juniors a 63% chance of winning, a 26% chance of a draw, and just 11% for Aldosivi, with expected goals of 1.62 for the home side and 0.54 for the visitors. The final result ended up matching that forecast, though the path there came with an extra twist: Vombergar's early goal forced the home side to fight uphill for more than an hour before it could impose its superiority.

The win puts Argentinos Juniors atop Group B with 16 points from 7 matches played (5 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss), while Aldosivi sits at the bottom with just 2 points from 7 outings, without a win and with 5 losses. The 14-point gap between the two in the standings is a fairly accurate reflection of what played out on the field as well: one team controlling the ball and creating chances in bulk, the other needing isolated moments to make its mark.