Talleres must snap out of its home slump against a hot Rosario Central at the Kempes

Talleres heads into this one at Mario Alberto Kempes Stadium with just a single win in its last five matches and an urgent need to grab three points. Standing in the way is Rosario Central, which is riding a completely different kind of momentum, arriving with the confidence of having won three of its last five outings. The matchup falls under Group A of Argentina's Primera División and pits together two teams that, oddly enough, share fourth place in the overall standings even though their seasons tell very different stories.

The home side has posted a record of one win, no draws and four losses in five matches played in the tournament, scoring 6 goals and conceding 10. The recent run confirms the drought: four defeats and just one victory in the last five games. In the Group A table, Talleres sits in 15th place, with 3 points and a goal difference of minus 4, well off the pace set by the current top group of Instituto, Gimnasia Mendoza, Vélez Sarsfield and Defensa y Justicia. Talleres averages 1.28 goals scored and 0.71 conceded per match, and tends to find its best attacking form between the 31st and 45th minutes. Valentín Dávila, with 4 goals, leads the attack, followed by Augusto Schott and Ronaldo Martínez, both with 3.

Rosario Central, on the other hand, arrives in a completely different mood: 3 wins, 1 draw and just 1 loss across its five matches played, with 5 goals scored and 3 allowed. Over the last five games it has picked up three wins, one draw and only one defeat. The team tends to strike early, with its most productive attacking stretch coming in the first 15 minutes. Ángel Di María, Enzo Copetti and Alejo Veliz share the scoring lead with 4 goals apiece, a sign of how evenly the offensive workload is spread across the visiting squad.

What the head-to-head record shows

Recent history between these two sides points to a tight balance: across 8 matches, Talleres has won 2, Rosario Central has yet to win any, and there have been 6 draws. The goal split is close too: 8 for the home side and 6 for the visitors over that stretch.

Possible lineups

Talleres' likely starting eleven, based on recent patterns and with medium reliability, would have Ezequiel Unsain in goal, a back four of Augusto Schott, Alexandro Maidana, Román Riquelme and Santiago Fernández, a midfield of Franco Cristaldo, Matías Galarza, Rick, Federico Fattori and Timoteo Chamorro, with Ronaldo Martínez leading the line up top.

For Rosario Central, also an estimated lineup, Jeremías Ledesma would start between the posts, with a back line of Ignacio Ovando, Gastón Ávila, Emanuel Coronel and Agustín Sández, a midfield of Ángel Di María, Franco Ibarra, Vicente Pizarro, Jáminton Campaz and Giovanni Cantizano, and Enzo Copetti as the lone forward.

Match probabilities

Our model, based on this season's trends, points to a tight race between a draw and an away win, with a home victory the least likely outcome:

The numbers don't point to a clear favorite: the gap between a draw and a Rosario Central win is just two percentage points, so by this in-house estimate, which should in no way be read as a betting line, this shapes up as an evenly matched game. The expected goals figures reflect that same tight balance: 0.74 for Talleres and 1 for Rosario Central, for an estimated total of 1.74. On top of that, the probability of both teams scoring sits at 54%, while the chance of the match going over 2.5 goals comes in at 46%, just under the halfway mark.

With Talleres desperate to reverse a negative trend on home turf and Rosario Central looking to confirm its strong form on the road, the Kempes will host a contest in which the league table matters less than each team's current form.