Wlk's Brace and Peña Biafore Header Send Lanús Past Deportivo Riestra 3-0

Allan Wlk scored twice, Felipe Peña Biafore added a header to seal it, and Lanús walked away with a clear 3-0 win at the Guillermo Laza. Deportivo Riestra controlled the opening stretch and put up more shots, but ended up on the wrong end of a rout against a visiting side that made the most of what little it had.

The match opened with the home side pushing forward from the start: in the 3rd minute Yonatan Goitía tried his luck from outside the box, and shortly after Milton Céliz did the same, without success. But it was Lanús who struck first. In the 10th minute, off a counterattack, Eduardo Salvio whipped in a cross that Allan Wlk turned in with his right foot from the center of the box to make it 0-1. Deportivo Riestra kept pressing, with shots from Nicolás Benegas and Alexander Díaz that missed the target, but couldn't find an equalizer, and the first half ended with Lanús ahead on the scoreboard despite having less of the ball.

In the second half, Deportivo Riestra shook things up with three substitutions right at the restart, looking for a response, and for a good stretch the game stayed open. But Lanús bided its time and struck when it mattered. In the 68th minute, again set up by Salvio, Wlk finished with his left foot from the left side of the box to make it 0-2. Five minutes later, in the 73rd, Matías Sepúlveda swung in a cross from a free kick and Felipe Peña Biafore headed home the final 0-3. Deportivo Riestra had chances to get one back through Tomás González, Alexander Díaz and Agustín Graneros, but none of them found the net.

The numbers behind the match

Oddly enough, the shot statistics favored the home side, even though Lanús held far more of the ball and was much sharper in the final third.

According to our xG estimate based on the match's shots, Deportivo Riestra generated 1.7 expected goals against 2.189 for Lanús. The number confirms that the home side put up plenty of shot volume, but also that the visitors created the genuinely dangerous chances, something that showed up on the scoreboard with three goals scored from six shots on target.

The projection we published ahead of the match gave Deportivo Riestra a 27% chance of winning, 41% for a draw and 32% for Lanús, with a combined expected goals total of 1.46. Reality ended up far from that forecast: there was no tight match as anticipated, nor did the score resemble the draw that had been the most likely outcome, but instead a three-goal margin in favor of the visitors.

What it means in the standings

In Group A, Lanús came into this match with 13 points from 9 games played (4 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses), while Deportivo Riestra had 9 points also from 9 matches (2 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses). The gap between the two sides before this result stood at 4 points, and this road rout widens the distance between two teams that had been sharing the lower half of the table.

For Lanús, Wlk's brace and Peña Biafore's goal, both created from precise crosses into the box, summed up a night in which clinical finishing made the difference against a Deportivo Riestra side that generated plenty of offense but couldn't turn it into goals.