Arsenal Sarandi vs Boca Juniors

Estadio Julio Humberto Grondona is the venue as rock-bottom Arsenal Sarandi and Copa Sudamericana hopefuls Boca Juniors meet in a high-stakes Liga Professional contest.

Arsenal Sarandi’s bid to ensure top-flight football for another season took another hit last time out as they slipped to a 1-0 loss at Atletico Tucuman, their fourth defeat in five league matches (W1). Pinned to the foot of the table, the hosts can rely on their home comforts to help them close a one-point gap on safety. Indeed, three of Arsenal’s four Liga Professional victories this season have come in their last five outings at Julio Humberto Grondona (L2), two of which yielded an identical 2-1 scoreline. However, Arsenal’s traditionally slow home starts have seen them score just three first-half goals in eight home league fixtures this season. Speaking of slow starts, only two of those eight games featured a goal within the first 15 minutes.

On the other hand, Boca Junior’s season has been an unmitigated catastrophe thus far, with Jorge Almiron’s side languishing in 9th in the Liga Professional standings without a glimmer of hope of catching up with table-topping River Plate. But since falling to a heartbreaking 1-0 defeat to arch-rivals River in early May, ‘Azul y Oro’ have gone into overdrive, stringing together three consecutive league victories ‘to nil,’ two of which saw a goalless halftime score. Scoring remains an issue for Boca, as they’ve netted under 1.5 goals in three of their last four top-flight outings, failing to get on the scoresheet before halftime on three occasions. By contrast, they’ve bagged precisely two goals in their two most recent competitive meetings with Arsenal (W1, D1), which forms part of their 11-game scoring H2H run.