Friday, May 8, 2015

Weeks of the Superclásico – River beat Boca 1-0

We are most definitely seeing the weeks of the Superclásico: Last weekend saw the first of three matches in under two weeks between Boca and River, which ended in a late 2-0 league victory for Boca Juniors. Now, the round of 16 had the second treat for football fans across the globe. And again the home team came away with a win. This time it was River Plate who won the game 1-0 in their Monumental stadium, through a penalty goal from Carlos Sanchez in the 82nd minute. Gonzalo Martínez had been brought down in the penalty area by Lucas Marín. You can see the deciding goal below.


The game itself was dominated by River Plate, who throughout the game were the better team and ended up leading 14-6 in shots as well. Teófilo Gutierrez led the way with 7 alone. Speaking of Gutierrez, he did not last until the end, due to a red card a minute from fulltime after recklessly hitting opposing defender Guillermo Burdisso. He will miss the return leg next Thursday. The game itself was quite heated, there should have been two more red cards. Goalscorer Sanchez himself with an unbelievable elbow to the head of Fernando Gago, that went undetected by the referee. In addition, the referee and his assistants also missed Pablo Pérez spitting on Gonzalo Martínez. Scenes we do not need despite all rivalries. 

sanchez maidana calleri
Boca’s Calleri (right) tries to get past Sanchez (left) and Maidana.


River coach Marcelo Gallardo was pleased with the way his team performed. "We had to be decisive, aggressive and intense. And we were all that tonight. The victory was fair, "he said. "Maybe we could have scored another goal. I'm satisfied, we needed to win and not concede a goal against.” He added that River will need another strong showing in the second leg away from home: "We'll have to prepare intelligently. We think we can capitalize from our advantage." Gallardo named his midfielders Ponzio and Kranevitter the keys to the victory.

Boca coach Vasco Arruabarrena agreed that the game was in general a better one than the previous meeting in the league: "I think it was a little more about football than in the Bombonera. They were higher in the first half and pressuring well in the center of the pitch, pushed, pushed, had to be very attentive. In the second half we saw that we could play, we had a bit more of the ball, a little more precision and some dangerous situations but our error caused the penalty and the goal.” Meanwhile he stayed optimistic and noted that he expects his team to turn the “minimum handicap” around at home.

As you would expect, the stands were filled with atmosphere all game long, particularly impressive the entry of the home team.


Like I previously mentioned, the second leg will take place on next Thursday (Friday, 2am CET). Who do you think will come away with the victory on aggregate and move on to play the winner of São Paulo FC vs Cruzeiro EC?

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