Next time Boca go head to head with San Lorenzo, even if it’s at San Lorenzo’s ground – nay, especially if it’s there – he needs to back himself to pull off a rabona assist at 0-0. The alternative, though, is to double down. The first (and more boring) of the two is to save these things for different opposition – perhaps try it in a pre-season friendly, just to test the water. Ultimately we have to ask whether he really regrets attempting the rabona or whether he simply regrets that it didn’t come off. We saw this in the Premier League with West Ham’s Manuel Lanzini poking the bear with a rabona against Watford in 2016, enticing the opponents to respond with four unanswered goals, and the brawl on the San Lorenzo goal-line was simply a purer way of expressing frustration at the move.īuffarini, after all, is a man who played more than 100 games for San Lorenzo in four seasons with the club. However, this ignores the basic fact that whenever you attempt a rabona, you are acknowledging the disrespect and going down that route in full knowledge of what may await.
“I got overconfident, I apologise one thousand times to the players of San Lorenzo and their fans,” Buffarini would later say.
