Good game... poor ref. Another 2 penalties not called, just like vs Palestino Overall positive display in a very tough stadium. The 3 points next week vs Alianza Lima, however, are a must
There are just so many players that underperformed last night. Given it was a hostile environment, but that was inexcusable. The way they just sliced us open, especially on the second goal was awful. Lux is also a goalkeeper that will never save you. He is, despite a few high profile errors, normally a pretty reliable keeper, but he will never pull a rabbit out of his hate to save the team... it really was the worst possible moment for Armani to go down. We are better than any of the teams in our group, but we now need to start showing it. Allianza Lima is a poor team we should beat them badly, but we also should have beat them in Lima
Subs vs Tigre Carrascal has a good chance of finally starting (....maybe) I'm crossing my fingers that the U-20 kids Sosa, Ferreira, and Julian Alvarez play from the get-go as well. Been looking forward to seeing their development as they all have shown capabilities of becoming important players in the future. Hopefully Sibille takes advantage of his opportunity this time, assuming he plays. I can't believe Lollo is still part of the squad. Anyone hear anything about Hernan Lopez (18 year old AMF)? Apparently he only has 6 games under his name in the reserves team, but he must have done something right for Gallardo to call him up to the senior squad so quickly. -- For now, it looks like Matias Suarez has won himself the starting spot alongside Pratto in the full-strength line-up, considering how Borre was called-up for this game and he wasn't, despite the Colombian starting a few days ago in Brazil. -- On a completely unrelated note, anyone know what's going on with our bostero primos? I swear their sub-forum has been quieter than a meditation garden since December, as if something happened. I hope they're doing alright!
So River's lackluster "super" Liga camping ends with a loss to Tigre, 3-2, who went down anyway. German Lux is a serious liability. I don't know what I was thinking when I said he was mainly reliable. The guy is truly hopeless. I don't know if we will qualify out of this group with him in goal. I remember that Gallardo felt that Bologna deserved to replaced Lux a while back, but what did Lux do to regain his spot? He had a penalty save against Tigre last season but what else? The kid Hernan Lopez looks very good, what a debut to score. Nahuel Gallardo seems questionable to me. Not sure what else to say about the game that was mainly a dead rubber that was decided by the fact that one team had a goalkeeper and the other team (us) didn't. Thursday is a MASSIVE game. No more excuses. NO more easy goals can be allowed. No more poor finishing (I think Borre was reading his press releases about possible Premier League interest, because he hasn't scored since, even missing a penalty in Peru)
What a signing Matias Suarez has been... And De La Cruz is finally looking good But WTF was Pratto doing? First Borre in Lima, now Pratto... I hope this won't come back to bite us. We need a penalty taker who will constantly score, remember Pratto also missed vs. Banfield, but was lucky the rebound came right to him. Pratto also missed an open goal from the top of the box. This team Allianza is truly terrible, but we have Lux in goal and they could score at any moment if we don't kill this game off. Need to score at least two more goals
What a performance from De La Cruyff... I mean De La Cruz Assists the first goal, wins a penalty that pratto hit out of the stadium, wins the corner for the second goal, then caps the game with a brilliant third, which could be important if it comes down to goal difference. What if De La Cruz becomes like Pity? He's been terrible during his time at river, but in the last few weeks he looks like a different player, with more confidence, always asking for the ball, making rivals dive in on him... And he's scoring goals now, and amazing goals at that. River now controls its own destiny in the Copa. Need to win in Chile against Palestino and we're through. Its shame how we squandered chances in this copa, we really should win this group hands down, even Inter is not even half the team we are when we're one.
It was just a Copa Argentina match, but River is going to need Borre to get back to his best if we want to lift the Copa. He looked good last night and sometimes a player just need to get on track against shit opposition. Matias Suarez is really just a crack. Again, it was against shit competition, but his class and elegance, he reminds me a little (a little ok!) of Francescoli in how talll and talented he is. If Pratto continues in his rut, could Suarez and Borre be a starting partnership?
I absolutely love Suarez. What a player. That guy was born to wear the red diagonal stripe across his chest
Matias Suarez reminds me a lot of Scocco. Different types of players, but both born to play for River, and both will probably one day regret not come to Nuñez until so late in their careers. Both toiled away at their home town clubs. I know Suarez wasn't linked to River, but if he'd first come to River in 2016 when he left Europe instead of wasting his talent with Belgrano, just think what he could have done? Scocco was constantly linked with us, but stayed at Newells and had a disastrous move to Sunderland. I would have loved to have seen both players at River at the age of 27-28.
Santos Borre is an idiot. After his idiotic yellow in La Bombonera ruled him out of the second leg, he goes and does that and will be out at least 2 matches, luckily the copa america comes before the round of 16 so suarez will be back hopefully (and maybe a reinforcement will arrive), but my patience with Borre is thin. After his goal, I thought he may have been ready to make the next step
Borré is clearly going through a slump, I think once again a young player gets too distracted with rumors about an imminent sale to Europe and forget that they still have to earn their starting spot in a champion squad.
With Libertadores qualification achieved, our attention turns to the mickey-mouse competition called the Copa de la Superliga, which was basically invented because the AFA created a league season with only 25 games, 13 fewer than we used to have and shorter than even seasons in tiny places like Uruguay, Sweden, and Switzerland. Truly a sad state of affairs as every year the AFA gets more egg on its face while the true fans wait for a 38 game season. That being said, given that we have to play in it, we might as well try and win it. We play Aldosivi Sunday night with 15,000 river supporters present in Mar del Plata. Santos Borre will return to the line up after his red card in the Copa. Lets see if we can add to our trophy list, meanwhile the bosteros are playing a half strength squad in order to concentrate on the prestigious "Supercopa Argentina" against Rosario Central, eliminated in the copa libertadores and most likely getting relegated next year
Really digging the level of our CMs... not only did Palacios put on a great display the other day, but both Enzo Perez and Bruno Zuculini have been at their best levels since they arrived to the club. Those two have been making a hell of a duo in the middle these last few months Nacho Fernandez has also clearly stepped it up since the Madrid final..
What a save by Armani! Oh, and if any european scout is watching this game, Borré has absolutely no chance of ever crossing the atlantic.
I've said it before, often times Nacho Fernandez looks to dive rather than shoot. Why the hell did he not shoot there? Then Aldosivi turns around and scores. He is the reason this match is tied. (That and Borre missing 100000 chances)
Honestly, give me any of these teams. No team on the continent is as good as us when we are on, not even close, and we would wipe the floor with any of the three paraguayans. Personally, I'd like to see us get Flamengo. Last year, our trip to the Maracana was marred by the fact that they were facing a stadium ban and our fans suffered, unable to go to such a historic ground because of no fault of our own. And personally.... If we did get Fla, I'd contemplate going to El Maracana for the return leg. Other than the matches last year and that amazing Mayada goal, I remember watching an amazing River-Flamengo game when the 4 Fantasticos were playing.... (Aimar,Angel, Ortega, Saviola) and Ortega scored an amazing lob against them.
Tough loss, but at least it didn't hurt too bad given the insignificance of this cup.. To be honest, River didn’t have as bad of a game as the score implies, but the team did fold after the second goal. Trying to flip this 0-3 scoreline will be a good test for a hypothetical scenario in the real copa. In terms of individuals, Armani has been horrible for a few months now.. No idea what is going on, but he needs to get it together before the Recopa. No one is denying his heroic saves in the past, but man, his performances have been very weak lately (especially these last two games vs Internacional and Atletico Tucuman). Looks like he's been training too closely with Lux.. Rojas, after a really good start with the jersey, showed last night that he's still a youngster. Not too worrying, given his age, but he proved to still be green.. Atletico's attack was slicing right through him and Pinola effortlessly. Mayada finally made it evident that he is playing out of position. After serving effectively out of emergency as RB, LB, and everything in between, yesterday he was outplayed from start to finish and demonstrated clear defensive deficiencies. Angileri played well... perhaps moreso offensively than defensively, but overall it was a good display from the former Godoy Cruz man. He seems to be getting better every game and is putting up a good fight to keep the position depending on how Casco returns from his injury. Up top, Borre continues with his bad decision making. His hustle is still there, but he has been leaving a lot to desire in terms of finishing and final touch. Very strange player.. Suarez wasn't much better, but he came off the bench and just barely returned from his injury days ago. This was probably Matias's first bad game since joining the club. We'll see if we can flip it on Tuesday, but if not it'd really feel no different than losing a Torneo de Verano tbh
This match Tuesday can be good practice for the Libertadores if we need to chase the score. If the UEFA champions league this season has taught us anything, is that truly anything can happen in football. We saw River score two goals in the final minutes in Brazil last year, which was equally as crazy, but I am excited to see us need to go for it like crazy from the first minute with the home crowd behind us, like the Liverpool-Barcelona game. If we can get a goal in the first 15 minutes, the Tucumanos will collapse. The key is just getting the goal, against Independiente del Valle, we took too long to get it and it cost us. Like you said, the fact that this competition was only created because the idiots at the AFA designed a league with only 25 matches cheapens the whole thing. Its hard to get excited about something that only exists bc of the complete incompetence of Tapia, Angelici, and their cronies.
So we were just drawn with Cruzeiro in the Copa Libertadores. If we advance to QF, we’d likely head to Paraguay (faceoff vs the winner of San Lorenzo-Cerro Porteño) The only chance for a superclasico would be in SF
Cruzeiro is definitely is the hardest draw out there, but we went there before completely against the odds and put in perhaps the best performance of all time by an Argentine club on Brazilian soil so no need to panic. Vamosssss
Nothing more to ask from the fellas.. they played a fantastic game and throughout the 90 minutes once again showed the trademarked characteristics that this team is known for — pure heart and perseverance Round of applause for the champions
I love seeing the team just go balls to the walls for 95 minutes giving everything to just score goals in a game that, in the big scheme of things, didn't matter at all. Had we played like that and then been eliminated anyway in the Libertadores, it would have been heart breaking, but as it was this pointless competition, it really doesn't hurt at all. The only thing I'll say is, its completely understandable to let in a few goals, and Armani was great, but it really sucks to let in a set piece goal... We need to get better at that before the Recopa and then the Copa Libertadores in July Its funny to see how many small teams are left... the winner will be one of Tucuman, Tigre, Boca, Velez, Gimnasia, or Argentinos, many of the smallest teams in the country.