Apertura 2011 Round 3 - Five at the Top

It was for sure a profitable round for customers of the previews service, who were recommended bets on San Lorenzo -0.25, Racing DNB, Colon +0.25, Belgrano +0.25 and the only lost one was Newell's +0.25 with an unfortunate Boca goal in the 87 minute of the game.
Contact me at mncarg@gmail.com for service and fee details !

Third round of Apertura ended and we now have 5 (!!) leaders with 7 points, 7 undefeated teams, 8 teams that still couldn't win, 2 that didn't concede a goal yet (Boca and Lanus), 2 that couldn't score one (Estudiantes and Banfield) and only one team with 0 points (Banfield).

* The first game of the round was finishing with a fair draw when in the 91st minute Velez, the team that had tried more to win it along the 90 minutes, scored a nice goal to get the 3 points.
First half was a good one. Both hit the post once and Velez played a little better, but in the 2nd half not much was happening until the 0-1 at the end.
Velez, the last champion keeps making a difference with their solid team.

* It's always a nice day when your team wins (San Lorenzo in this case), especially with a solid performance, and even more if the game goes as predicted.
There was not much nice football in the 3-1 win vs Argentinos Jrs, but once again San Lorenzo proved to be an intense and very focused team and the 3 points were definitely deserved.
Coming up next : the big derby @ Boca !!

* Lanus had just another poor performance. They could have won it, but the scoreless draw was definitely a fair result.
Sooner or later they will start playing better, but meanwhile they are one of the leaders of the league

* In the last game of Saturday Independiente had the luckiest win in a looong time. Estudiantes was far far better in the 1st half, hitting the post one and missing chance after chance.
When Independiente got a red card before half time it looked like the away win was inevitable, but Independiente scored in their only shot at goal 2 minutes into the 2nd half and from there
just held in defense for the remaining 43 minutes while Estudiantes kept missing incredible chances. The stats probably say that Estudiantes shot at goal at least 5 times more than Independiente, but in the standings they have only 1 point of 9, completely far from what they expected to have by the 3rd round.

* A goal with less than 3 minutes left gave Boca the win.
If there had to be a winner in the game it was fair that Boca was it because although they didn't have many clear chances they controlled the ball and tried to attack until the end. Newell's could have scored earlier but in the end tried to settle the draw and ended paying with a last minutes defeat.

* Racing got their 2nd win in a row and is another leader of apertura.
It was a very similar game to the one Racing drew 1-1 at Tigre in the first round : early goal by Racing and they just tried to hold to it in the 2nd part.
The difference was that Banfield just doesn't have any luck this days and everything they tried went wrong. They are not a bad team and probably will come back from this awful start (3 of 3 lost and no goals scored).

* Sunday started with All Boys losing a game they were winning since the first minute. They never found out how to close it, Rafaela kept attacking -no good football but they tried a lot- and with 2 goals in 15 minutes got their 2nd win in 3 games. All Boys never knew how to close the game and is still win-less in Apertura.

* Colon is the 5th leader and was always a little better than Olimpo during the game and although it could have ended in a draw, the away win was a deserved result.
Next week they will play the Santa Fe derby against Union for the first time in 8 years !

Round 4 starts next Friday and will have two derbies that stand out as the most important games of the round : the Santa Fe derby Colon - Union (played for the first time since 2003) and one of the biggest derbies in 1st division, Boca - San Lorenzo.

Round 3 results :

19/8 — Arsenal 0 – 1 Vélez Sarsfield
20/8 — San Lorenzo 3 – 1 Argentinos Juniors
20/8 — San Martín (SJ) 0 – 0 Lanús
20/8 — Independiente 1 – 0 Estudiantes
21/8 — All Boys 1 – 2 A. Rafaela
21/8 — Tigre 2 – 1 Godoy Cruz
21/8 — Newell’s Old Boys 0 – 1 Boca Juniors
21/8 — Banfield 0 – 1 Racing Club
22/8 — Olimpo 0 – 1 Colón de Santa Fe
22/8 — Unión 0 – 0 Belgrano

This is the full schedule 4th Round schedule:

Friday August 26
17.05-- Godoy Cruz Antonio Tomba-Banfield
19.10-- Estudiantes de La Plata-San Martín de San Juan
21.15-- Racing Club-Arsenal F.C.

Saturday August 27
15.00-- Lanús-Tigre
17.05-- Atlético Rafaela-Olimpo de Bahía Blanca
21.15-- Vélez Sarsfield-All Boys

Sunday August 28
14.00-- Colón de Santa Fe-Unión de Santa Fe
16.05-- Belgrano de Córdoba-Newell's Old Boys
18.10-- Boca Juniors-San Lorenzo
20.15-- Argentinos Juniors-Independiente

Standings :


* Table taken from www.la-redo.net