Newell’s Old Boys suffered a surprise home defeat to struggling San Lorenzo on Wednesday night at the Estadio Marcelo Bielsa.
The squad had been battling a flu outbreak during the week leading to manager Javier Sanguinetti, himself affected, leaving out Nicolás Castro for a second game in a row and also resting Juan Garro who had symptoms. Striker Juan Manuel García also failed to recover from an injury sustained in the warm-up of the Racing game so Nazareno Funez once again led the attack with Djorkaeff Reasco in behind.
Rosario newspaper La Capital noted that Newell’s played with “more heart than football” on the night. Despite dominating possession, a lot of chances went wasted and the away side capitalised on mistake. Agustín Martegani opened the scoring at the back post after 21 minutes when Newell’s were scrambling to clear the ball after Willer Ditta made an acrobatic goal-line clearance. The second was gifted to El Ciclón in the second half when Panchito González and substitute Nicolás Castro miscommunicated a pass. Federico Gattoni still had work to do but finished spectacularly from the edge of the box.
Sanguinetti introduced debutant Genaro Rossi with ideas running thin and Cristian Lema did grab a consolation with 15 minutes to go. The goal was awarded after a lengthy VAR check but Newell’s ultimately lost the match 2-1 and now have to beat Gimnasia on the final day of the group stage to hold onto a valuable qualification spot and progress to the knockouts.
Watch the highlights of the match below.
