In 2011, River Plate were relegated from the Argentine Primera Division. The league’s relegation coefficient system was invented specifically to prevent River and Argentina’s other massive clubs from going down, yet they managed it anyway. It was an impressive feat of incompetence, but Los Millonarios have recovered brilliantly, and just over three years later, they’re having their best season in recent memory.
River Plate’s perfect season is crumbling, thanks to Boca Juniors
It’s quite possible that Boca Juniors win nothing this season and finish in a mediocre league position. But they’ve already screwed over River Plate twice, and that’s as good as a trophy to them.
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However, despite their successes, River are on the verge of winning nothing at all. And it’s all because of their most hated rivals, Boca Juniors.
River entered their October 5 Superclásico tilt with Boca undefeated in the league, top of the table, looking like clear title favorites. Even with the Apertura’s clásico taking place at La Bombonera, River were very heavy favorites. Boca, struggling in their first season since 2007 without Juan Roman Riquelme, didn’t stand a chance.
That is, until mother nature intervened. The game was a farce, with the referee forcing both teams to play despite La Bombonera’s pitch becoming so severely waterlogged that it was essentially a lake. Almost every bounce of the ball was random chance.
Perhaps it was only fair to both teams that this ridiculous match ended in a draw. And as well as River were playing compared to Boca at this point in the season, an away point in a clásico is never a bad result.
But still, River had to feel aggrieved. They were denied a fair chance to record a big win over Boca en route to their first title since their return from the second division, a result that would have been remembered by their fans forever. This was the first time Boca played a part in ruining River’s perfect season.
Part II of the ruining of River’s perfect 2014 Apertura took place over the last week. On Thursday, the two met at La Bombonera again, this time in the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana semifinal. While not as prestigious as the Copa Libertadores, South America’s premier club competition, the Sudamericana isn’t a totally meaningless trophy. That’s especially true when a team can deny their most hated rival a piece of silverware in the process of winning it.
The match was a dull 0-0 draw, and a physical one. Boca didn’t come close to scoring on too many occasions, and they didn’t seem to care. They accomplished their two objectives on the night: deny River an away goal and beat the holy hell out of them.
This continental Superclasico couldn’t have come at a worse time for River, because sandwiched inbetween the two legs of their Sudamericana semifinal was Sunday’s match against Racing Club, their most important match (at least competitively) of the season in Argentina. River entered the match top of the table, with Racing just one point behind.
Even though they were playing away to the biggest threat to the league title, River all but threw the match and rested everyone for the second leg of the Sudamericana Superclásico. Starters Leonardo Pisculichi, Ariel Rojas, Leonardo Ponzio, Teófilo Gutiérrez and Carlos Sánchez were not only left out of the starting XI, but they didn’t even make the bench. River just left them at home.
Teó was the most notable of that group, not just because he’s the league’s leading scorer, but because of who started up top. River’s forward partnership consisted of Sebastian Driussi and Lucas Boye, a pair of not-yet-wonderkid 18-year-olds who have one league goal each in their careers. If River needed a goal, they’d need those two to do something about it. Teó wasn’t there to bail them out.
It only took 16 minutes for River’s decision to start looking very, very bad.
Unsurprisingly, Boye and Driussi couldn’t get the job done, nor could returning veteran Fernando Cavenaghi, and Racing won 1-0 to go top of the league. They close their season away to Rosario Central, who are both very bad and somehow in a midweek cup final, and at home against Godoy Cruz, who went six straight without a win on the road at one point this season. They’re probably not going to lose.
A Sudamericana win would make everything worth it for River, and there’s always the possibility that Racing could fail spectacularly (they do that a lot), but it’s looking increasingly likely that this season will end disastrously for them. And if they finish 2014 with no trophies to their name, it’ll be all because of Boca Juniors.
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