Lanús and Argentinos Juniors Share the Points in a Back and Forth Battle

Four minutes. That's all the joy lasted for Lanús at Ciudad de Lanús, where the home side went ahead only to watch the lead vanish almost immediately, settling for a 1-1 split of the points with Argentinos Juniors in Argentina's Primera División.

The match grew into itself as it went along, and through the 69th minute neither goal had been breached despite no shortage of chances. That's when Felipe Peña Biafore struck, tapping in a header from close range off a Carlos Izquierdoz corner delivery to make it 1-0 and light up Ciudad de Lanús. The lead didn't last: in the 73rd minute, Gastón Verón, who had come on just four minutes earlier, headed home a cross from Nicolás Oroz to level things for Argentinos Juniors, who arrived at that moment with fresh legs after a simultaneous double substitution.

A back and forth first half

Before the goals came, the first half had been a parade of shots without reward. Lanús looked sharper near goal: Eduardo Salvio, Gonzalo Pérez, Dylan Aquino and Allan Wlk tested the visiting goalkeeper from distance and inside the box, but he answered time and again. Argentinos, for their part, created chances through Diego Porcel, who tested the home goalkeeper twice within the first half hour. The score at the break was 0-0, though both goalkeepers had already been put through their paces.

In the second half, the pattern held: shots from Kevin Coronel, Claudio Bravo, Franco Watson and Nicolás Oroz went without reward, until a bit of relative sharpness showed up just as the match entered its decisive stretch. After Verón's equalizer, the match saw more back and forth, with Alcaraz and Francisco Álvarez searching for a second for the visitors, but the scoreboard didn't move again.

The numbers behind the match

Argentinos Juniors controlled possession and the passing lanes, but Lanús was sharper in front of goal. Here are the key figures:

The shots on target tally, 8 to 4, goes a long way toward explaining why Lanús, despite seeing less of the ball, was the side that more often troubled the opposing goal. Our own xG estimate, calculated from the match's shots, points in the same direction: 1.542 for Lanús against 1.205 for Argentinos Juniors, figured after the fact. It's not a prediction, but it does paint the picture of a match that was even in terms of danger created, with a slight home edge that the final result partly reflected.

The preview had pointed to a tight contest, with a 29 percent chance of a Lanús win, 35 percent for a draw and 36 percent for Argentinos Juniors, along with expected goals of 0.87 for the home side and 1 for the visitors. The draw, the most likely outcome under that projection, is exactly what played out, though the path there came with the twist of two goals in four minutes that could have tipped the balance either way.

What the result leaves behind

In the Group A table, Lanús came into this match sitting ninth with 7 points from 6 games played (2 wins, 1 draw, 3 losses), while Argentinos Juniors does not appear among the standings in that zone. The draw leaves Lanús with the feeling of a lead squandered in just four minutes, but also with the confirmation that, in shots on target and in the game's clearest chances, it was able to go toe to toe with an opponent that controlled the ball far more over the 90 minutes.