Jogging, far from the elegant jacket that he usually wears in each official match,
Martín Demichelis
went through the mouth of the World Cup stadium tunnel and did not appear at the press conference, where his Mendoza colleagues were waiting for him.
The coach chose not to make any statements when many were wondering what happened to River, which came packed, with a fresh title and is undefeated in the League Cup.
On Friday they were beaten (4 to 0) by Independiente Rivadavia, a minor rival that lost 7 of the last 8 dates in the local tournament.
“We shot ourselves in the foot,”
they confessed near the coaching staff.
When the fans' questions had died down, just after the consecration of the Argentine Super Cup against Estudiantes, and they began to see Demichelis with different eyes after the victory against Gimnasia, the defeat opened a new crack.
Although not everyone points to the coach.
Apparently in the ninety minutes of the duel played at the foot of the Cordillera,
the criticism is especially directed at the replacement.
River did not have
Franco Armani
(Argentine National Team),
Claudio Echeverri
,
Pablo Solari
(U23),
Nicolás Fonseca
(Uruguay) and
Paulo Díaz
(Chile), almost all starters.
And for this match Matías Kranevitter
and
Manuel Lanzini
were once again starters
after separate tears that required a longer recovery than usual.
Manuel Lanzini played his first game of 2024. He was far from his level.
(Photo: José Gutierrez / Los Andes)
The man from Tucumán injured the rectus femoris of his right leg in the preseason and was only able to play for a while on the 8th match against Talleres, when he entered the second half for the last quarter of an hour.
Later, he played 9 minutes against Independiente Rivadavia in the La Liga Cup and 6 against Independiente.
With Gimnasia he was a substitute.
Yesterday he showed all his difficulties in the first stage and was replaced by Tomás Leiva after 14 minutes of the complement.
The hitch, on the other hand, had not played a minute in all of 2024 until Friday.
The tear in the hamstring of his right leg that he suffered on January 23 in the friendly with Pachuca had him suffering.
He was also seen to lack rhythm, he did not weigh in the setup, he was weak in his passes and he almost did not kick on goal.
He was replaced by Nacho Fernández.
David Martínez was portrayed in the 4 Mendoza goals.
(Photo: José Gutierrez / Los Andes)
Another one returning from injury was David Martínez, who barely played 18 minutes in 11 League Cup games.
He suffered a trauma to his right ankle and was not summoned to Gimnasia.
The naturalized Paraguayan defender gave many advantages in the background.
Agustín Sant'Anna and Rodrigo Villagra, the reinforcements, were also not up to the task.
However, the most worrying thing is that the players that River presented against Independiente Rivadavia would be starters in any Primera team: Ezequiel Centurión, Sebastián Boselli, Milton Casco, Santiago Simón, Agustín Palavecino, Franco Mastantuono and Facundo Colidio completed the picture.
Matías Kranevitter is another who had added a few minutes and did not perform.
(Photo: José Gutierrez / Los Andes)
In the second half some kids entered: Agustín Ruberto (18), Daniel Zabala (21) and Leiva (19).
Esequiel Barco and Rodrigo Aliendro also played.
“Why was this friendly played?”
, was the question that many River fans asked themselves.
Especially because the team had a string of matches and the Copa Libertadores is coming up.
Much more so, because the team had Monday and Tuesday off and could not train on Wednesday due to the storm.
The match was going to be played in November, during the previous FIFA date, but an alert from the National Meteorological Service due to the furious Zonda wind forced the organizers to cancel the match.
There is a good economic agreement with StarPlus in this regard.
That's why we had to find a space in the calendar.
Nobody expected it to do such deep damage, of course.