How it happened
Gimnasia y Esgrima Mendoza won 1-0 against Newell's Old Boys in Clausura Group A, and they did it while being clearly outplayed on the underlying numbers. Newell's created 2.33 expected goals to the home side's 0.29, a gap of more than two goals, and left without a point.
The first half finished goalless. The decisive moment came on 58 minutes, when Agustín Modica scored for the home side. No other goals followed, and the match had no red cards.
Newell's had 61% of the possession and 15 shots, but only one of them was on target. Gimnasia managed two shots on target from nine attempts, and one of them was enough.
The numbers
Newell's led on every volume measure: 15 shots to nine, seven corners to one and 61% possession to 39%. The finishing column went the other way, with two efforts on target for Gimnasia and one for the visitors.
Mazzantti, the Newell's forward, had the highest match rating of the three players listed at 8.5. He made four key passes in 90 minutes and had 33 touches, with an expected goals figure of 0.14 for his own attempts. It was not enough to turn the creation into a goal.
Gimnasia's goalkeeper Cesar Rigamonti recorded a match rating of 7.9 and made one save. Modica, who scored, had a match rating of 7.4 and an expected goals figure of 0.12 for his own efforts, so the goal came from a low-value chance.
What it means
The result repeats the score of the sides' previous meeting, on 21 March, when Newell's won 1-0 at home. That makes the head-to-head record one win each from two matches.
Over their last 10 matches, Gimnasia have won five, drawn two and lost three, scoring 14 and conceding 11, for 1.7 points per match. Newell's have won three, drawn five and lost two, scoring 10 and conceding eight, for 1.4 points per match.
This was a clean sheet for Gimnasia, built on a lone goal and on limiting Newell's to one shot on target despite the volume they produced. Football is high-variance, and a 2.04 expected-goals gap in defeat is the kind of margin that does not always repeat.