The numbers show Boca are no longer what they were in Brazil | OneFootball

Boca fell by the narrowest of margins to Cruzeiro at the Mineirão in the third matchday of the Copa Libertadores group stage. The Belo Horizonte side ended the Claudio Úbeda team’s 14-match unbeaten run and also extended its poor streak on Brazilian soil: it has now gone ten matches without a win there in international competitions, marking the worst run in its history.

Xeneize played the entire second half under pressure following the controversial sending-off of Paraguayan forward Adam Bareiro, who picked up two yellow cards in a five-minute burst near the end of the first half. The match became an uphill battle for the Argentine side, which felt hard done by by Uruguayan referee Esteban Ostojich, whose decisions changed the course of the game and forced it to drop several yards deeper to defend against the home team’s attacks.

When everything pointed to the team from La Ribera taking a valuable away point against the strongest rival in its group, with less than ten minutes remaining, Néiser Villarreal got in behind the defenders and scored the winner, extending Boca’s agony to ten matches without being able to win in Brazil.

As one of the continent’s giants and having won its last two Libertadores titles on Brazilian soil, Xeneize earned the respect of the neighboring country. However, the recent trend has seen it suffer one blow after another, to the point of recording the worst winless streak in Brazil in its history.

The last time was six years ago, when in the 2020 edition of South America’s top club competition it beat Internacional de Porto Alegre 1-0 at Beira-Rio in the first leg of the round of 16, thanks to a goal from Carlos Tevez. Football fans will remember that night because it came just days after Diego Maradona’s death, and the Apache paid tribute to No. 10 by wearing a jersey from 1981.

From that night, in the middle of the pandemic, to the present, Boca visited Santos, Atlético Mineiro, Corinthians, Palmeiras, Fluminense -which it faced at the Maracanã in the Libertadores final- and Fortaleza, in a string of disappointments that deepened its elusive run in Brazil, surpassing the eight away visits without a win it recorded between 1993 and 1997.

It is worth noting that in 2023 it reached the Libertadores final after eliminating Palmeiras at Allianz Parque in São Paulo, but that match ended 1-1 and, after the tie in the series, qualification was ultimately decided on penalties.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.