Tigre defeated Sarmiento 1-0 this Thursday, and put him in the relegation zone along with Arsenal by table of averages, in a match played in Victoria, closing the eleventh round of the Professional League.
The goal for the locals was scored by the Paraguayan Blas Armoa, in a match that had passages of very good play and an episode of high tension at the end when the visiting players surrounded the referee Nicolás Ramírez, claiming a hand that the referee did not even check in the VAR.
And precisely the one who was in charge of the VAR was the one suspended for the next date, Fernando Espinoza, penalized for his lousy refereeing in the match between Atlético Tucumán and San Lorenzo.
In addition, there was a face-to-face confrontation between Tigre’s coach, Diego Martínez, and Sarmiento’s midfielder, Emiliano Méndez, who reproached him for some derogatory criticism made by the coach of the Junín team in the last confrontation between the two.
Two teams with an irregular pace that also for this match had to make changes to their starting eleven due to injuries and suspensions. On Tigre’s side, the formula was for Facundo Colidio to have it and triangulate with Mateo Retegui and Blas Armoa.
While Israel Damonte also bet on the plate of his two forwards: Javier Toledo and Luciano Gondou, but in the first fifteen minutes, the best moments were given by the youthful Manuel Mónaco who with improvisation, dribbling and self-confidence made the local goalkeeper Gonzalo wallow Marinelli.
Monaco played behind Tigre’s recovery flyers and appeared anywhere, looking for empty space, offering himself as a passing alternative. With the passing of the minutes the meeting went back and forth.
With inaccuracies and some errors, but both teams maintained their idea of looking for someone else’s goal, being offensive. While Tigre did it with a lot of touching the ball, Junín’s green was practical and vertical and looked for Toledo and Gondou to pivot, lower the ball and thus wait for the arrival of the midfielders.
At minute 36, Tigre had a counterattack with several passes until Colidio opened it to his left, where Martín Garay arrived, who put a precise cross into the center of the area, where Blas Armoa headed it into the back of the goal.
Damonte claimed a foul on the goal, and also a second warning from Retegui and his subsequent expulsion, but it spilled over and Ramírez sent him off before the end of the first half.
In the second half, Tigre came back more self-confident, Lucas Menossi and Sebastián Prediger became strong in the middle, they began to handle the ball, while those led by Damonte seemed to lose sight of the youthful Monaco, who had pulled the strings in the first time.
The visitors sent Lisandro López and Lucas Melano onto the field to increase the volume of play and be more dangerous and reach Marinelli, who in the first 15 minutes of the second stage was a mere spectator.
But Sarmiento had a hard time getting to the rival area and he did it with a set piece after 25 minutes, when Toledo only received the ball at the far post, after a corner, but he hit it very mail over the crossbar.
Sarmiento was in the form of a raid and in the last minutes of extra time he had a couple of corner kicks and especially the last one when the ball did not leave the local area and TV showed a hand from Tigre Agustín Cardozo’s midfielder, for which everything Junín claimed a penalty.
In the next play, Badaloni entertained the ball near Sarmiento’s area and gave it to Alexis Castro, who lost the second almost alone in front of the goalkeeper. As soon as referee Ramírez blew the final whistle, the entire bench of visiting substitutes and the starting players surrounded the judge demanding the final hand.
The end of the match ended in a racket, where even Tigre’s substitutes intervened, until the police managed to put together a cordon around Ramírez to allow him to leave the field of play.
At the end of the first half, the visiting coach Israel Damonte was sent off for protesting and at the end of the match he questioned the arbitration without being emphatic, as if he were taking care of possible subsequent reprisals, although he did maintain that “because of the kick he hit, they would have Mateo Retegui to have thrown”.
