Instituto – Deportivo Riestra

Instituto had a more than decent performance on their return to the top flight, closing their campaign with a scoreless away draw to River Plate (at Independiente) and ending up just two points behind the last Copa Sudamericana berth in the aggregate table. In fact, La Gloria lost only one of their last 11 league matches (along with three victories and seven stalemates). On a sorry note, Diego Dabove’s men are on four games without a win as the hosting side, having drawn three and lost one. The club confirmed the returns of Silvio Romero (from Fortaleza EC, Brazil) and Guido Mainero (Sarmiento) and also signed Victor Cabrera from Tigre in a total of nine arrivals.

Founded in 1931, Deportivo Riestra got promoted to the top flight for the first time in history by beating Deportivo Maipu 1-0 in the Primera Nacional second promotion playoff final (at Instituto). El Malevo reached that surprising goal thanks to a nine-match unbeaten streak of seven victories and two draws. In fact, Matias Modolo’s men also won their last four away matches in the second tier. The club signed 15 new players for this iconic season.

Riestra is probably the smallest club ever to play in Argentina’s top division, and with so many new players it should take them some time to adapt to play at this level. Instituto lost their striker Adrian Martinez, but veteran Silvio Martinez returned from playing at Brazil and he should be a more than good replacement, so I expect the hosts to take the 3 points here against a team that needs to find their best form with so many new players.

BET: Instituto -0.5 @ 1.89