Colón fell 1-0 against Gimnasia and was relegated to the second division

Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata defeated Colón 1-0 and managed to stay in the first division of Argentine soccer, in the playoff match for permanence played this Friday at the Newell’s Old Boys stadium, in Rosario (neutral).

Nicolás Colazo (41) scored the only goal of the afternoon with a notable left footed shot into the corner, in a tense duel played under intense rain, and thus left Lobo in first place, while Colón will accompany the second division in the decline. Arsenal, relegated several weeks ago.

Gimnasia and Colón had to play a tiebreaker match since they equaled with 45 points in the penultimate place in the annual table for the 2023 season, above Arsenal, which lost the category for being the last on the list of averages, in the system mixed relegations that the Argentine championship has.

Thus, Colón loses the category for the third time in its history, after the relegations of 1981 and 2014, a fall that occurs two and a half years after celebrating its only title in the highest category, when it won the Professional League Cup. -2021, which was followed by a rapid decline until this defeat that marked his decline to second.

“It is a tremendous relief, because we could have saved ourselves two or three dates ago. We had a bad time all year. We had to have courage and determination, but we were able to move forward,” said Leonardo Madelón, Gimnasia’s coach, who came into this tiebreaker with just one point in his last four games.

The tiebreaker had as an unexpected hero Nelson Insfrán, the Gimnasia goalkeeper, who had been a substitute throughout the year, but DT Madelón decided to include him as a starter for this final instead of Tomás Durso, and the goalkeeper stood out with a couple of decisive saves in injury time to avoid Sabalero’s tie.

While Colón and Arsenal fall to the second division, Independiente Rivadavia, from Mendoza, and the winner of the playoff that will be played on Saturday by Riestra and Deportivo Maipú, also from Mendoza, will go up to the first division.