Boca take advantage of early red card at San Lorenzo, cruise to 2-0 win at the Nuevo Gasometro

Playing with ten men from the 30th minute on, San Lorenzo hung on as long as it could, but ultimately fell 0-2 to Boca Juniors at the Nuevo Gasometro in Argentina's Primera Division. The scoreline didn't open up until the second half, though the match had already tilted well before that.

Manuel Insaurralde's sending off, for a foul on Santiago Ascacibar, changed the game before the first goal ever went in. Down a man for the entire second half, San Lorenzo was left to defend and hope, while Boca kept piling up chances until the dam finally broke.

How the deadlock broke

The first blow came in the 56th minute: Leandro Lozano finished with his left foot from the center of the box, set up by Leonel Flores, to make it 0-1. Boca had already been knocking on the door before halftime, with shots from Lautaro Di Lollo, Santiago Ascacibar and Alan Velasco that didn't find the net, so the goal felt more like the natural result of Boca's control than any kind of surprise.

The second goal arrived in the 71st minute, with Miguel Merentiel connecting with a right footed finish into the middle of the goal off a cross from Lautaro Blanco, making it 0-2 for the final score. San Lorenzo, meanwhile, had tried to respond with substitutions (Juan Rattalino, Diego Herazo, Juan Pablo Alvarez, Matias Reali and Facundo Gulli all came on during the match), but playing a man short, the home side could never get organized enough to seriously trouble Alvaro Montero's goal.

The numbers back up the dominance

The match statistics reflect pretty accurately what played out on the field: Boca controlled the ball for almost the entire match and outshot the home side by a wide margin.

That superiority also shows up in the expected goals figures calculated from the match's shots: 2.44 for Boca compared to just 0.37 for San Lorenzo, a gap that confirms the visitors didn't just have more of the ball, they created the clearer chances too.

The contrast with the pre match projections is striking. Beforehand, Boca were given a 42% chance of winning, against 20% for San Lorenzo and 38% for a draw, with expected goals of 0.6 for the home side and 0.99 for the visitors. The final result, a 2-0 win with such a lopsided gap in shots and possession, ended up more decisive than that forecast suggested, though the early red card helps explain why the match got so out of balance.

What it means in the standings

In Group A, Boca moved up to 17 points with the win, part of a tightly packed group of teams sitting between third and sixth place. San Lorenzo, on the other hand, stayed at 11 points, with a record of 3 wins, 2 draws and 5 losses so far in the tournament, and a negative goal difference that today's loss does nothing to help. The two sides are now separated by 6 points in the table, a gap that the way the match played out at the Nuevo Gasometro did nothing but confirm.