Unión Santa Fe edges Instituto 3-2 in five-goal thriller with red card controversy

Header after header, back and forth, and in the end it was Unión Santa Fe smiling: a 3-2 win over Instituto at Estadio 15 de Abril, in a match that had a bit of everything, including a red card overturned by VAR and another that arrived a minute later for the same player. Five goals, two red cards and seven minutes of stoppage time sum up this afternoon in Argentina's Primera División pretty well.

The match started with Instituto striking first. In the 12th minute, off a corner kick, Leonel Mosevich rose unmarked to head home Alex Luna's cross for the 0-1. Unión Santa Fe needed just twelve minutes to answer: Brahian Cuello, also with a header, nodded in a cross from Juan Pintado to make it 1-1 in the 24th. That tie held through halftime, after the referee added two minutes that changed nothing on the scoreboard.

The home side pulls away in the second half

What looked like an even match broke open right as the second half began. In the 47th minute, moments after the restart, Cristian Tarragona headed in a Cuello cross to make it 2-1. Unión Santa Fe found more room to control the game afterward, and in the 73rd minute the third goal arrived: Misael Aguirre, on from the bench, finished with his left foot off a Lucas Menossi assist to make it 3-1.

Instituto did not give up. With four minutes left in regulation, Hernán de la Fuente, also just off the bench, pulled one back with a left-footed shot, again assisted by Alex Luna, who had a hand in two goals on the afternoon. The 3-2 brought tension to the closing stretch, though it was not enough for more.

The finish had its own separate chapter. In the 88th minute, VAR stepped in and overturned a red card shown to Cristian Tarragona, but just a minute later, in the 89th, Tarragona was sent off anyway. Instituto also finished with ten men: Matías Gallardo picked up a second yellow in the 95th minute, deep into stoppage time, which ran to seven minutes because of the stoppages.

Match numbers

Instituto controlled the ball more and generated more overall volume, but Unión Santa Fe was sharper where it counts most: inside the box.

That gap between possession and efficiency also shows up in the xG figures calculated after the fact from the match's shots: Unión Santa Fe posted 1.01 expected goals against 0.64 for Instituto, a number that backs up the idea that the home side, with less of the ball, was sharper when it did shoot.

Before the match, we projected a 44% chance of a Unión Santa Fe win, a 31% chance of a draw and 25% for Instituto, with expected goals of 1.37 for the home side and 0.97 for the visitors, for a total of 2.35. The final result, with five goals on the board, blew well past that number, though the outcome, a home win, was indeed the scenario we had rated as most likely.

In the Group A standings, this result leaves Instituto third with 16 points from 8 games played, while Unión Santa Fe sits fifth with 13, a three-point gap between the two sides. It was a back and forth match, with defensive lapses at both ends, that Unión Santa Fe managed to close out better when it mattered most.