Platense salvages late draw against Argentinos Juniors with Zapiola penalty

Diego Porcel popped up from outside the box in the 10th minute, off a corner kick, to make it 1-0 for Argentinos Juniors with a low left-footed strike that snuck in by the post. Platense needed a penalty to salvage the afternoon: Franco Zapiola converted it in the 69th minute, also with his left foot and also by the left post, and the score finished 1-1 at Estadio Ciudad de Vicente Lopez in this Argentina Primera Division clash.

The home side came out on top statistically, but the number that matters most is the early goal. Argentinos made the most of a corner to catch Platense off guard right as the match got underway, and that was enough to control much of the first half without any major scares. Platense had its chances (Martin Barrios tried twice from outside the box and once with a header, all off target), and right at the end of first-half stoppage time, Tomas Molina rattled the right post for Argentinos, a chance that could have put the game away before the break.

The penalty that changed everything

In the second half, Platense went searching for the equalizer with early substitutions, making a triple change in the 62nd minute (Ivan Gomez, Franco Zapiola and Gonzalo Lencina all came on). The pressure paid off in the 67th minute, when Diego Porcel fouled Tomas Silva inside the box and the referee pointed to the spot. Two minutes later, Zapiola, who had just entered the match, made no mistake from twelve yards to make it a final 1-1.

With the score level, Platense kept pushing: Zapiola had a couple more chances, Nicolas Retamar tried his luck from inside the box, and Augusto Lotti, deep into stoppage time, headed a good cross from a corner over the bar. Argentinos, for its part, shored things up with substitutions from Hernan Lopez, Gabriel Florentin, Claudio Bravo, Kevin Coronel and Matias Gimenez, and held on until the final whistle to grab a point.

The numbers behind the match

Platense was the more dominant side in terms of overall play, posting more possession, triple the shots and nearly double the shots on target. Argentinos, meanwhile, made the most of the little it generated.

That edge in shots also shows up in the post-match expected goals numbers: Platense generated 1.46 xG compared to 0.45 for Argentinos. It's a measure of the quality of chances each team created with its shots, not a prediction, but it confirms that the home side deserved more than a draw based on what it produced on the field.

That figure contrasts with what we had projected beforehand, where we gave Argentinos Juniors a 46% chance of winning, against 20% for Platense and 34% for a draw, with total expected goals of 1.87 split between 0.70 for the home side and 1.17 for the visitors. The draw, which was the second most likely outcome in our projection, ended up being the actual result, though the match played out with Platense pushing far more than we anticipated.

In the Group A standings, Platense enters this match in 13th place, with 11 points through 12 games (2 wins, 5 draws and 5 losses), while Argentinos Juniors does not appear among the teams listed in that table. The point helps Platense add to a season that, with a goal difference of -6, has been a tight one. For Argentinos, on the other hand, the draw cuts short a lead that seemed to be in hand after Porcel's early goal, and leaves the impression that the home side, with more shots and more xG, could have walked away with more than a single point.