Diego Martinez bet on double nine at the start, with Miguel Merentielstarter in all official and friendly matches with the new coach and Edinson Cavaniwho during the preseason sought to improve physically after an injury that spoiled the end of 2023. The duo started with everything with that goal from the Fair, who has been wearing the Boca shirt for 19 minutes, at 8 minutes. However, it was a cursed night for the other Uruguayan who has more than 400 goals in his career: the Matador had five goal situations and the only one he converted was in an advanced position. To complete a devastating panorama in the Nuevo Gasómetro, he retired injured, with discomfort in his left thigh.
While Merentiel, with those 19 goals in 52 games, reached Uruguayan scorers in the table Santiago Silva (at 55) and Ariel Krasouski (161) and by goal average they climbed to the podium that they lead Sergio Martinez (87) y Severino Varela (43), Cavani has only 3 goals in 18 games for the club.
In the first half Cavani had a good performance, but further from the goal. But everything changed in the final part. At 4 minutes into the second, he poked into space after a pass between the lines of Kevin Zenon and defined after eluding the goalkeeper. He celebrated but immediately looked towards the assistant’s position and realized that he was ahead (one body length at least).
Three minutes later, the second chance: after another clearance from Zenón, and again left-footed, the Uruguayan forward shot freely, this time inside the crescent, but his shot went wide. A while later, a cross arrived from the left, he headed and the ball traveled throughout the small area and went wide.
For the third time in the match (and in the second half), Zenón left Cavani in front of the goal and this time it was the crossbar that denied the Uruguayan striker the goal. After an exquisite filtered pass from the former Unión, the Matador stung it before the goalkeeper came out Fernando Monetti, but his shot crashed against the horizontal. At that point, the forward could not hide his annoyance at the tremendous bad fortune.
A while later, another filtered pass from Zenón, with a great game, left Cavani in front of the goal but the forward missed the ball when trying to raise it over Monetti who had reduced it, and the goalkeeper won the one-on-one match. In the vain effort of that play he felt discomfort in his left thigh, he signaled to the bench and Benedetto immediately entered, to complete a black night.
The final image after 1-1 seemed surreal. The new kid, Zenón, came up to hug the veteran scorer, who was heartbroken over the draw, the lost goals and the injury. Football things.