- With the 3-1 win over Vasco da Gama, Boca won a tie at the Maracanã for the first time and have now won 18 in Brazil in CONMEBOL competitions.
- It is the second time the 'Xeneize' have turned a tie around with the second leg in Brazil: the first was against Paysandu in 2003, the year they lifted the CONMEBOL Libertadores.
Boca Juniors had never won a tie at the Maracanã. They did it on Tuesday, when they needed it most. A week after losing 1-0 to Vasco da Gama at La Bombonera, Rodolfo Arruabarrena's side won 3-1 in Rio de Janeiro, with goals from Lautaro Di Lollo, Miguel Merentiel and Leandro Paredes, and booked their place in the CONMEBOL Sudamericana Final. According to Opta, it is the second time the 'Xeneize' have turned around a tie in a CONMEBOL competition with the second leg in Brazil. The first came in the Round of 16 of the 2003 CONMEBOL Libertadores: they lost 1-0 to Paysandu in Buenos Aires, won 4-2 in Belém with a hat-trick from Guillermo Barros Schelotto and finished the year with the trophy.
Since 1991, when they knocked out Corinthians in the Round of 16 of the CONMEBOL Libertadores, Brazil has been a place where Boca feel at home. With the Vasco tie, they have now won 18 ties on Brazilian soil in continental competitions: 12 in the CONMEBOL Libertadores, three in the CONMEBOL Sudamericana and one each in the Copa de Oro, the Supercopa and the CONMEBOL Recopa. Four of them were Finals and ended in titles: the 2000 CONMEBOL Libertadores against Palmeiras, 2003 against Santos and 2007 against Grêmio, and the 2006 CONMEBOL Recopa against São Paulo. Palmeiras and São Paulo, knocked out four times each, are the opponents who have most often watched them celebrate on home soil.
The Maracanã was the missing piece on that map. Tuesday's game was Boca's sixth at the stadium in CONMEBOL competitions, their first in the CONMEBOL Sudamericana and their first win there in a knockout tie; their record now stands at two wins and four defeats. In Rio de Janeiro they had already celebrated in 2012, when they knocked out Fluminense in the CONMEBOL Libertadores Quarter-finals, but at the Maracanã their big nights had ended in defeat: there they lost the first leg of the 1963 Final to Pelé's Santos, the second leg of the 2008 Semi-final and the 2023 Final, the last two against Fluminense.
The win also matters beyond Boca. Until Tuesday, no Argentine club had ever won at the Maracanã in the CONMEBOL Sudamericana: Independiente were crowned champions there in 2017, but with a 1-1 draw against Flamengo. One of the night's protagonists already knew what it was like to win at the stadium this year. Sebastián Villa, who set up Merentiel for the 2-0, was part of Independiente Rivadavia's 2-1 win over Fluminense in the CONMEBOL Libertadores Group Stage in April. With three assists for each club, the Colombian is the player with the most assists in CONMEBOL competitions in 2026.
Semi-finals against Brazilian clubs have also gone their way. The Vasco tie was the tenth Semi-final Boca have played against Brazilian opposition in CONMEBOL competitions, and they had already advanced in seven of the previous nine; seven of those eight qualifications were sealed on Brazilian soil. One was the 2004 CONMEBOL Sudamericana tie against Internacional: 4-2 in Buenos Aires, 0-0 in Porto Alegre and, afterwards, the first of their two titles in the competition. That tie produced another fact that the night at the Maracanã brought back: Diego Cagna, who scored against Internacional at 34, is the only Boca midfielder older than Paredes to score in a CONMEBOL Libertadores or CONMEBOL Sudamericana Semi-final. The captain did it at 32 years and 113 days, with the strike from outside the box that sealed the tie.
The comeback also ended two runs that had arrived in Rio intact. Brazilian teams had gone 13 home games unbeaten against Argentine opposition in CONMEBOL Sudamericana knockout ties, with seven wins and six draws, and Vasco had neither lost nor conceded in their last five home games in this edition.
Several figures in today's Boca already knew that road. Rodolfo Arruabarrena, the coach, was the left-back in the team that won the 2000 CONMEBOL Libertadores in São Paulo, the first of those Finals in Brazil. Juan Román Riquelme, now the club's president, won two of his three CONMEBOL Libertadores titles there as a player, in 2000 and 2007, and his surname has left its mark on the country: according to Brazil's 2022 census, 31,684 people bear his name or a variant of it.
Boca will play their third CONMEBOL Sudamericana Final in Barranquilla on November 21, after those of 2004 and 2005, which they won. That figure puts them level with Atlético Nacional, Lanús and LDU Quito as the clubs with the most Finals in the competition, and in the CONMEBOL Libertadores they have played more than anyone, with 12. If they win, they will become the first three-time champions of the CONMEBOL Sudamericana. Their opponent will be decided on Wednesday at the Estadio Centenario, where Montevideo City Torque host Atlético Mineiro, who won the first leg 3-0. And a Brazilian side, once again, could stand in their way.
