River Plate v Boca Juniors
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Sunday 20th March – 10:00PM KO
This Sunday is Argentina Primera Division’s biggest derby, River vs Boca. It is early in the season and both teams are looking good to qualify for the quarter-finals of the Superliga cup, but derbies are guaranteed to be played on the edge. Matches between the two are always hard-fought and almost always close affairs. In fact, four of the last five head-to-heads have ended in a draw.
The last one, however, went to River Plate. That game was last season, when River were by far the best team in the league and claimed the title by some distance. This season, River are not so dominant although they are top of their group. Ezequiel Barco, who came back to Argentina from Atlanta United, has at times been brilliant. The quick and handy winger wants to do a bit too much sometimes, but always create opportunities, and manager Marcelo Gallardo already confirmed his line-up for this game with Barco in it.
Boca will have Dario Benedetto back and that seems necessary. The former Olympique Marseille striker is the top goalscorer for Boca this season, despite missing several matches. Without Benedetto, Boca only scored one goal in the last two games and looked a bit toothless up front so his return is massive for them. Though the derby will have a lot of scuffles and time-wasting, both teams seem to be particularly strong in attack, with Manchester City-bound Julian Álvarez up front for River. Goals seem the best pick for me in this one.
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Prediction: Over 2.5 Goals, 2.20 on Betfair (⭐️⭐️⭐️)
Defensa y Justicia vs Arsenal de Sarandí
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Monday 21st March – 10:15PM KO
Defensa y Justicia look great this season. With Sebastian Beccacece in charge, they’ve become a team that likes to attack and creates lots of scoring opportunities. This positive football style has come at a cost, because Defensa do concede a fair amount of goals. But it hasn’t hurt them too much yet, as they are the shared leaders in their group. Their last game against Argentinos Juniors (1-0 victory) was a bit different from previous games in that they barely created chances and it was only a stoppage-time goal that gave them the victory.
However, I don’t suspect that’ll happen again against Arsenal de Sarandí. They will surely see more of the ball, because in each match that the guests featured in, they have had less possession than their opponents. Arsenal might be one of the weakest teams in the league this year. In the 0-0 at home to Vélez Sarsfield last week, they failed to get a single shot on target and were lucky to come away with a draw. On top of that, Arsenal were axed from the cup by a mid-table second division team on Wednesday, so the mood is certainly not positive in Sarandí. Beccacece already confirmed that he’ll start the exact same XI as in the victories against Banfield and Argentinos, so I suspect they won’t have any problems with Arsenal. That’s why I’d put my money on the home side to claim all three points here.
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Prediction: Defensa y Justicia to win, 1.44 on Betfair (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
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