Rio de Janeiro gave Leandro Paredes a night of repair and release. At the Maracanã, where Argentina have so often found significance, the Boca Juniors midfielder came off the bench to strike the goal that sent his club past Vasco and into the Copa Sudamericana final, sealing a 3-1 victory with an emphatic effort from outside the penalty area in the 42nd minute of the second half.
It was Paredes’s 43rd senior career goal, but its weight was unusual even for a player approaching 16 years in the professional game. Boca had arrived in Brazil needing to overturn a 1-0 defeat from the first leg at La Bombonera. With the tie poised on the edge, the 32-year-old supplied the finish that completed the turnaround and gave the six-time Libertadores champions another continental final.
After the match, Paredes also addressed an earlier exchange involving Vasco midfielder Thiago Mendes, saying Boca had felt disrespected. Yet he kept the central emphasis on the collective effort. “The heroes are the whole group,” he said on the pitch. “They are doing extraordinary work, pushing themselves as far as they can. This squad wants important things.”
A return shaped by setbacks
Paredes returned to Boca in June 2025 after leaving Roma and swiftly became the reference point in Rodolfo Arruabarrena’s side. His comeback season has now reached 55 appearances, five goals and 10 assists, but the route to the Maracanã had been anything but smooth.
He went to the 2026 World Cup with Argentina and played the final three matches of their run to the runners-up medal despite a rib fracture. The tournament ended badly for him in more than one sense. Following Argentina’s defeat to Spain in the final, Paredes was involved in a confrontation with Spanish players: he grabbed Eric García around the neck, challenged Gavi and made contact with his face. FIFA handed him a 10-match suspension and a US$90,000 fine, valued at R$464,800 at the time.
Four days after the final, Paredes was already back playing for Boca. He created a goal in the 1-0 win over O’Higgins in the Copa Sudamericana round-of-16 play-offs, beginning a response on the field after the World Cup fallout.
Boca had put together a 17-match unbeaten run before the Vasco tie began, but injury then threatened to remove Paredes from the decisive weeks. Having initially been held back by Arruabarrena for the 2-2 draw with Instituto, he entered 10 minutes into the second half and was forced off 16 minutes later with a grade-two problem in his left hamstring.
He missed Boca’s home loss to Vasco and then the 2-1 win against Talleres at the same stadium. To shorten his absence, he underwent platelet-rich plasma treatment using his own blood. Blood and stem-cell particles were extracted, processed to concentrate platelets and growth factors, then injected into the injured thigh.
The recovery was quick enough to bring him into the match in Rio after 11 minutes of the second half. His late strike made the difference between a difficult night away from Buenos Aires and a place in the final.
The Maracanã connection
Paredes described the occasion as one of the defining evenings of his career. He said he had played twice at the Maracanã and won both times, adding that the Vasco match was his third visit and that he felt at home there.
The count was short by one. This was actually his fourth appearance at the stadium, and every trip has ended in victory. Before Boca’s win over Vasco, he had been part of Argentina’s 2-0 Copa América victory over Venezuela on 28 June 2019, the 1-0 Copa América final win over Brazil on 10 July 2021, and the 1-0 defeat of Brazil in November 2023, when Nicolás Otamendi scored.
“I always want to be involved, to help,” Paredes said in the mixed zone. “That goal is among the most important of my career. I had dreamed of scoring one like that. In this stage of a competition, when it puts you into a final, it means so much.”
For Boca, the journey now continues beyond the Río de la Plata and across another continental threshold. For Paredes, the Maracanã has again offered a place to leave an unwanted chapter behind.
