Lanús 0 – 2 Newell’s

By: Jeremy | September 20th, 2009

Now that was a fun game to watch. We laid off the long ball, and a striker actually scored for the first time in around 700 minutes of play. Make that two strikers. Achucarro opened the scoring and Boghossian headed in a strike (which is what they brought the tall dude in for) in the second half. Of course he blew another easy opportunity or two, but at least he was in the right position at the right time. Good play from the strikers all around today.

I was really pleased by the hustle the whole side showed. Definitely no hangover from the embarrassment against Argentinos.

Mateo and Bernardi made a powerful midfield pairing and were like ball vacuums out there. I’ve gotta say that I like the 3-4-1-2 that Newell’s ran today and hope they keep it up, especially if those two continue the dominate play.

Achucarro is probably still out running some where. That guy never stopped. As impressive as he was I think I have to give Man of the Match honors to Sebastián Peratta, who looked like a brick wall in front of the goal. He made two great saves during the dying minutes of the first half when Lanús mounted their best attack on Newell’s.

Franco Dolci played well in his first start and even hit the crossbar with a try late in the game. Schiavi anchored the defense as usual and Sánchez Prette had a fairly good game as well, but he isn’t the one to connect the forwards to the midfielders like they are looking for. If they are going to continue with the 3-4-1-2, they need to find a better 1 or the 2 and the 4 may not meet to often and the 3 will be under a lot of pressure.

All in all, a good team effort and, not jumping on the bandwagon too quickly, I think this formation-lineup may have some real potential.

Video of the two goals.