Twelve times Santiago Montiel picked up the ball and looked to go past a San Lorenzo defender. Seven times he succeeded. Three times he was fouled for his trouble. By the end of Independiente's 1-1 draw, the midfielder had turned a routine league fixture into a personal exhibition of close control.
A one-man wrecking crew in midfield
Montiel's numbers stand out even without context: a 7-from-12 completion rate on dribbles is the kind of return that usually decides matches rather than shares the points. San Lorenzo's defenders resorted to fouling him three separate times, unable to find a cleaner way to stop him running at them.
The result finished level, but Montiel's individual display earned him a match rating of 8.4, the sort of number that reflects a performance built on repeated one-on-one success rather than a single moment of magic.
Draw does not tell the full story
Independiente and San Lorenzo shared a 1-1 scoreline in the Liga Profesional de Fútbol, a result that will not linger long in the memory. What will stick, at least for those who watched closely, is the sight of Montiel again and again shifting the ball past a defender, drawing fouls, and forcing San Lorenzo to rethink how they set up against him.
For a player operating in midfield, that level of dribbling output, allied to the fouls won, points to a man who was simply too hot to handle on the day, even if his side could not turn that individual brilliance into three points.