Apertura 2011 Round 5 - No goals, no fun

Awful round in Argentina with only 13 goals in 10 games, and mostly pretty boring games.

The surprising Atletico Rafaela won again and with 12 points they are still the only leader of Apertura. It was a lucky win though because they won with an own goal by an Union defender when the home team was playing better. Union also missed a penalty in the 2nd half and got a red card int he last minutes that showed how frustrated they were because they lost a game that they deserved to at least draw.

With the win in the derby @ Independiente, Boca is one of the 2nd placed teams and they keep getting stronger.
They don't play well, they rarely dominate their rivals, but they show a solid defense, an effective offense and some luck as well. Independiente had been better int he 1st half, but when Boca scored the goal 4 minutes into the 2nd half they showed no reaction at all.
After that Boca should have won it by more goals because they missed many counter attacks, but their win was never in danger because Independiente was a completely harmless team.
The night ended with Independiente fans showing their anger and rumors say that coach Antonio Mohammed will resign on Monday morning.

The last game of the round showed as expected a Velez team struggling in offense. Olimpo played an intelligent game and showed some improvement from previous rounds.
When Velez was expected to go for the win like they used to do, they couldn't find the ball and Olimpo scored the 2nd goal. They still had the chance to get the draw but missed a penalty and left their coach and fans worried about the future, because unless they find a way to improve offensively it will be a long semester for them.

Unfortunately San Lorenzo just couldn't find a way to beat a team that played only defense the whole 90 minutes, and won with a long shot late in the 2nd half.
San Lorenzo played a bad game and didn't have any ideas, but I'm not exaggerating if I say that the Belgrano players didn't make 3 passes in a row. They just let the home team have the ball and decided that their only goal would be to destroy what San Lorenzo tried to do. The 3 points where a huge prize for a team that would have celebrated a draw.

If Newell's and Colon didn't play their game it could have been almost the same. The match was a 0-0 in everything, and Colon seemed more happy with this result.
And the same idea can be applied for the other two awful games of the round, All Boys - Racing and San Martin - Argentinos Jrs.

Tigre 's win was only 1-0 but should have been a bigger difference, specially for what they did in the 1st half. Banfield stays with 0 points and 0 goals scored and the new coach Ricardo LaVolpe was presented today.

Round 5 results :

2/9 — Newell`s Old Boys 0 – 0 Colón
2/9 — Tigre 1 – 0 Banfield
2/9 — San Lorenzo 0 – 1 Belgrano
3/9 — Arsenal 1 – 2 Godoy Cruz
3/9 — All Boys 0 – 0 Racing Club
3/9 — Lanús 2 – 1 Estudiantes
4/9 — San Martín (SJ) 0 – 0 Argentinos
4/9 — Unión 0 – 1 A. Rafaela
4/9 — Independiente 0 – 1 Boca Juniors
4/9 — Olimpo 2 – 1 Vélez Sarsfield

Round 6 Schedule :

Friday September 9
19.00-- Atlético Rafaela-Newell's Old Boys
21.10-- Colón de Santa Fe-San Lorenzo

Saturday September 10
15.05-- Godoy Cruz Antonio Tomba-All Boys
17.10-- Estudiantes de La Plata-Tigre
21.15-- Racing Club-Olimpo de Bahía Blanca

Sunday September 11
14.00-- Banfield-Arsenal F.C.
16.00-- Belgrano de Córdoba-Independiente
18.10-- Boca Juniors-San Martín de San Juan
20.15-- Vélez Sarsfield-Unión

Monday September 12
19.00-- Argentinos Juniors-Lanús

Standings :


* Table taken from www.La-redo.net