Zabiri leads Racing's lopsided first half against Elche: from 3-0 to 3-2 with a late scare

It started as an exhibition and ended as a scare. Racing de Santander raced to a 3-0 lead over Elche in just 35 minutes, with Yassir Zabiri simply unplayable, and wound up sweating it out at El Sardinero to close out a 3-2 win that got far more complicated than expected down the stretch.

Zabiri wrote the entire script of the first half. In the 14th minute he opened the scoring with a left-footed strike from outside the box that found the right side of the net. Six minutes later, in the 20th, he popped up again to tap in from the center of the box for the 2-0. And before the half hour was even up, in the 35th minute, he struck again with his left foot, this time off a cross from Iñigo Vicente, to complete his hat trick and make it 3-0. Racing reached the break with the game decided on paper, and in fact the first half ended exactly like that, 3-0, with Sergio Canales also testing his luck on several occasions without success.

The second half was a different story. Elche, who had been considered a roughly even opponent heading into the match, started moving the ball with more purpose and generating danger down the flanks. The substitutions (Ezequiel Ponce, Tete Morente, Lucas Cepeda and Javier Morcillo all came on) gave them fresh legs up front. The first crack appeared in the 77th minute: Buba Sangaré, assisted by Cepeda, cut the deficit with a low shot next to the left post. Barely a minute later, in the 78th, Fer Niño headed home a Tete Morente cross to make it 3-2 and set off alarm bells in the home stands. An uneasy Racing had to hold on for the rest of the match, including five minutes of stoppage time added at the end, to avoid letting the three points slip away.

What the numbers say

The stats confirm this was a match of two very different faces. Elche dominated possession and the overall volume of play, but Racing was more efficient when it mattered most.

Elche had more of the ball and more shots overall, but Racing was sharper in the box: our xG estimate, calculated from the location of the shots in this match, gives the home side 2.13 against Elche's 1.21, a gap that backs up the final result even if it doesn't fully capture the late scare.

Before the match we had published a projection pointing to a tightly contested game: 38% odds for Racing, 37% for Elche and 25% for a draw, with expected goals of 1.68 for the home side and 1.66 for the visitors. What actually played out on the field looked quite different from that balanced forecast: a one-sided first half broke any sense of parity, and it was only Elche's second-half response that pulled the score closer to what had been expected before kickoff.

What the result means in the standings

The win leaves Racing de Santander with 4 points from three matches played (one win, one draw and one loss), sitting in eighth place. Elche, on the other hand, is still struggling to get going: they have just 1 point from their three matches, one fewer win than their rivals and a negative goal difference that is already taking a toll. The two sides are separated by 3 points in the LaLiga standings.

The match stands as a snapshot of two almost unrecognizable halves: Zabiri's ruthlessness in the opening 35 minutes, and the resistance, more nerve-wracking than expected, that Racing had to show to avoid letting slip a lead that at one point looked all but decisive.