On the day of his 122nd birthday, River will have a date with his story. The celebrations will only be virtual because the attention will be focused on the match that Martín Demichelis' team will play against Sporting Cristal in Lima starting at 21:00 p.m., with Star + and Fox Sports televising.
The stop is brave. Not only because of what his opponent can propose from the football, but because of the pressure of the group numbers, which according to how day 4 of the group stage ends, River's classification to the knockout stages can be headed or hang by a thread.
Sporting Cristal is not a rival to underestimate (in fact, with the same number of games, it is one place higher, by goal difference). He already gave him a sample in the Monumental that he can complicate things, in that match that River started losing, turned it around, tied it and then ended up winning it by 4 to 2, with a great effort and one man less.
In Lima, the mental will also enter to carve. It is that River will go out to play the match this Thursday knowing the result of The Strongest, which will be presented two hours before against Fluminense in the height of La Paz. A victory for the Bolivians will force Núñez's team to win to stay with the same score as the highland team. A win for the Brazilians or a draw would leave Demichelis and company calmer.
Anyway, River can't trust himself and do his own thing. Because as much as the result of Bolivia favors it, a defeat of its own will leave it without depending on itself to qualify for the knockout stages, a very complicated scenario that has not been experienced since the remembered Libertadores 2015, the first that Gallardo directed and won. That team entered through the window to the hand to hand, after qualifying second in its group with only 7 points.
Demichelis thinks about putting the best he has and will wait for Nicolás De La Cruz, who is already recovered from the hamstring discomfort that afflicted him last week and left him out of the match with Platense, so surely the Uruguayan (who is in the sights of Flamengo) will start.
Meanwhile, what the coach keeps between seven keys is the scheme. If Barco or Solari play, it will be with five midfielders, since in case Solari plays he would do it as he did against Platense, as a winger in a line of three attacking midfielders ahead of the double five that make up Aliendro and Enzo Pérez. But if Miguel Borja plays from the start, double 9 would return, since Lucas Beltrán would start, after having had few minutes against Platense, entering from the bench of substitutes.
What is clearer is the defense. It is that River already knows that it will have two casualties for this match. One of them is that of Emanuel Mammana, who has not yet recovered from his synovitis in his left knee, and that of Leandro González Pirez, who will serve his suspension date for the expulsion suffered against Fluminense in Rio. Then, the pair of central markers will be integrated by Robert Rojas and Paulo Díaz.
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