Racing back to winning ways, knock out Belgrano and Cardozo | OneFootball

Racing Club and Belgrano of Córdoba played this Wednesday for a place in the quarterfinals of the 2026 Copa Argentina, in a round-of-16 clash between two teams going through opposite moments. La Academia won the matchup 1-0 and will next face the winner of the showdown between Vélez and Boca Juniors, scheduled for September 2 at the Mario Alberto Kempes Stadium.

The Avellaneda side struck right away. Gastón Lodico won the ball back in the attacking third and passed it to Adrián Maravilla Martínez, who beat his man and sent a cross into the heart of the box. There, Tomás Conechny met it with a header and left goalkeeper Thiago Cardozo with no chance to make it 1-0 after 4 minutes.

Belgrano, meanwhile, threatened through Emiliano Rigoni and Lucas Passerini. The striker almost scored by sheer chance, as Ezequiel Cannavo tried to clear the ball inside the box and it ricocheted off him, forcing Facundo Cambeses to stretch and prevent his goal from falling.

Near the end of the first half, after a save by Cardozo from Matko Miljevic, Maravilla Martínez scored La Academia’s second goal. However, it did not count, as there was an offside at the start of the play.

The start of the second half lacked clear scoring chances. In the 72nd minute, Racing had two chances in quick succession. First, Santiago Solari ran down the left flank and fired a shot that forced Cardozo to push the ball out for a corner. From the set piece, Maravilla Martínez got on the ball and hit a powerful shot, but the goalkeeper came up big again to deny the 2-0.

With ten minutes remaining, Cambeses saved Racing. The goalkeeper came up huge when he stopped a shot from Nicolás Uvita Fernández. The ball had fallen to the Belgrano forward after a goal kick from the keeper himself came up short, which Rigoni took advantage of to create a clear scoring chance.

As the match was winding down, Ramiro Hernandes tried to send in a cross, Uvita Fernández failed to connect, and the ball ended up in Cambeses’ net. However, the assistant referee called offside. After a VAR review, it was confirmed that the offside position existed, and Racing was let off the hook.

La Academia came into the match in its worst stretch of the year. Three straight defeats in the Clausura Tournament — 3-1 against Tigre, 2-1 versus Argentinos Juniors, and 1-0 against Banfield — left the Avellaneda team far from the international qualification spots in the overall table. That context makes the Copa Argentina more than just a parallel tournament: for Juan Pablo Vojvoda’s side, it is the most direct path to the next Copa Libertadores.

The Pirata’s outlook was different. Belgrano came in as the reigning Argentine football champion — it won the Apertura Tournament — and on a positive run in the Clausura: two straight wins and seven points from the last nine available. To reach this stage, the Córdoba side beat Atlético Rafaela 3-0 and then advanced past Gimnasia y Esgrima de Jujuy on penalties after a 2-2 draw in 90 minutes. In that shootout, goalkeeper Thiago Cardozo was decisive with two saves from the spot.

Racing, meanwhile, reached the round of 16 with a 4-1 thrashing of Defensa y Justicia at the Centenario Ciudad de Quilmes stadium, with goals from Miljevic, Rojo (penalty), Santiago Sosa

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