Edison Cavani and a match to forget: five missed goal opportunities and another injury?

Diego Martinez bet on the double nine at the start, with Miguel Merentielstarter in all official and friendly matches with the new coach e Edinson Cavaniwho in the pre-season tried to improve physically after an injury that ruined the end of 2023. The two started everything with that goal from Fierce, who has been wearing the Boca shirt for 19 minutes, to 8 minutes. Cursed evening, however, for the other Uruguayan who has more than 400 goals in his career: the Matador had five scoring situations and the only one 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, has reached the Uruguayan scorers in the rankings Santiago Silva (at age 55) e Ariel Krasouski (161) and with the average goal they climbed onto the podium which they lead Sergio Martinez (87) e 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 away from goal. But everything changed in the final part. In the 4th minute of the second, he hit the space after a pass between the lines Kevin Zeno and defined after evading the goalkeeper. He celebrated but immediately looked towards the assistant’s position and realized that he was ahead (at least a body length).

Three minutes later, the second opportunity: after another clearance from Zenón, again with the left, the Uruguayan striker shot freely, this time inside the half-moon, but his shot went wide. Shortly afterwards a cross arrives from the left, he heads it and the ball travels across the entire small area and ends up wide.

For the third time in the match (and in the second half), Zenón left Cavani in front of goal and this time it was the crossbar that denied the Uruguayan striker a goal. After a splendid through pass from the former Unión player, the Matador struck before the goalkeeper went out Fernando Monetti, but his shot crashed into the horizontal. At that point the attacker was unable to hide his annoyance at the terrible misfortune.

Shortly after, another through pass from Zenón, with a great play, leaves Cavani in front of the goal but the attacker misses the ball in an attempt to lift Monetti who reduced it, and the goalkeeper wins the one-on-one match. In the vain effort of that play he felt a discomfort in his left thigh, signaled to the bench and Benedetto immediately entered, to complete a black evening.

The final image after the 1-1 draw seemed surreal. The newcomer, Zenón, came over to hug the veteran goalscorer, who was heartbroken over the equalizer, the lost goals and the injury. Football stuff.