River Plate vs Independiente

Hasta El Gol SiempreRiver are in the red-and-white stripes, since I was unable to have a sashed shirt. Independiente are in red.

River's 4-2-3-1 featured Paulo Ferraro at right back pushing very far forward, as usual - he got their third goal cutting in almost from the right wing. The other defenders, including Carlos Arano at left back, didn't push forward as much. Facundo Affranchino and Matías Almeyda playing together in deep midfield essentially kept Leandro Gracián out of the game, whilst further forward Diego Buonanotte and new boy Manuel Lanzini kept switching between right and central attack, supporting Rogelio Funes Mori up front. Roberto Pereyra largely stuck to the left.

For Independiente, Lucas Mareque was the more attacking of the two full backs, but didn't get as many opportunities to burst forward as Ferrari opposite him - in part because of Ferrari keeping him so busy. The diamond midfield was largely bypassed, as the typical passing strategy - such as it was - from the visitors was to hit it long for Néstor Silvera to either knock down or hold up. That brought Independiente their equalising goal, a brilliant finish from the left channel by Silvera, but not an awful lot else, especially with Gracián's playmaking threat utterly nullified.

23.08.2010

Hasta El Gol SiempreClarification to the previous (since River's right back and right centre back have similar names, and I've mis-typed in my explanation): Paulo FerrarI, not Ferraro, was River's right back.

I've used this formation to illustrate an article on the match, which <a href="http://hastaelgolsiempre.com/2010/08/24/thoughts-from-the-weekend-river-vs-independiente/" target="_blank">you can read here</a>, if you want to.

23.08.2010

Hasta El Gol SiempreThanks for the HTML hint, nvr.

River won the title in 2008, but this year that stopped counting in their favour in the relegation table - relegation in Argentina is worked out on an averaging 'points-per-game' table using the last two seasons plus the current one. Since that title win they've been terrible, and started the season bottom of that table but for the three newly-promoted teams.

Essentially, they need a title challenge just to get clear of relegation, but so far they're looking good. Ángel Cappa came in as manager in April, arrested the slide towards the end of the season, and has three wins out of three so far this season. Cappa's sides have a reputation for playing lovely football, and so far that's not really materialised, but River have improved with each match so far in the Apertura. They've also got a very good goalkeeper, Juan Pablo Carrizo, who's come back from Europe having found it difficult to accept being benched after a couple of mistakes at Lazio and Zaragoza, and he's stiffened up the defence no end.

Important to also acknowledge the changes in the boardroom - after years of corruption and incompetence from previous president José María Aguilar, Daniel Passarella won the elections for club president last year and has been a new broom sweeping through the corridors of the stadium since then (by Argentine standards at least).

They look at the moment like they'll get well clear of it and perhaps even mount a challenge for the Apertura title, but time will tell.

24.08.2010

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