The set of the Doll defeated the Brazilian team 2 to 1 at the Independiente stadium and sealed the classification to the knockout stages of the Copa Libertadores. The local goals were from Julián Álvarez.
River Plate qualified tonight for the knockout stages of the Copa Libertadores by beating San Pablo on the Independiente court by 2 to 1 , which led to the elimination of the Brazilian team at the end of Group D led by the Ecuadorian Quito League with two points of advantage over the “millionaires”, whom it will visit on October 20 to define the first place in the area.
The River Plate victory confirmed the rising performance of the young Julián Álvarez, the 20-year-old from Cordoba who scored both goals for his team. Diego Costa, with a head, equalized for the paulistas, all in the first period.
The game had an intense development, with the two teams attacking each other from the start, although the premature conquest of River Plate, at 11 minutes, forced the visitors to redouble their energy in pursuit of at least a parity that would allow them to stay alive in the game. contest.
Then River was immediately recycled and began to play against, taking advantage of the facilities found by another Cordovan, Matías Suárez (assisted Álvarez in the opening), to win behind the back of the Spanish Juanfrán, who occupies the right side and allows Dani Alves playing in the middle of the field with the number 10 shirt (the same number with which he posed yesterday with Boca, at the “xeneize” Training Center in Ezeiza).
But equality, at 25 minutes, was not going to come because of any elaborate play, but because of a corner kick from the left that the “lungo” Diego Costa won with a head before an unarmed Javier Pinola and a static Franco Armani (today he arrived after 100 games with the River shirt), who was immobilized on the goal line.
This conquest returned the game to the initial setting, with River going to look for the unevenness again without speculation, filling the spaces in the Brazilian field and playing a high-level football, which denied at every moment the lack of competitiveness that the team suffered for six months, until the resumption of this Libertadores.
And as a product of this good game, with triangulations in the center of the attack, fast and precise, River reached its second conquest, after three passes that had as protagonists Ignacio Fernández, Nicolás De la Cruz and Álvarez as the vertex for the definition with a shot at the height of the penalty spot.
Once again the route of the meeting could have changed in terms of its appearance, but Marcelo Gallardo's River verified that it was not so much business to give a lot of space to the São Paulo players playing with a line of four in the background, and at the start of the second period de Núñez today “de Avellaneda” once again monopolized the ball and thereby marked superiority over their rival.
Of course, sustaining that rhythm with the aforementioned inactivity, against a hierarchical opponent like São Paulo, who is third in the Brasileirao, was going to take its toll on the physicality of the local footballers, something that began to show itself after 25 minutes.
It was then that Gallardo chose to resort to the 3 bar 5 line behind, with the entry of Chilean Paulo Díaz by Álvarez. This gave River more defensive solidity, but also gave the ball to San Pablo for longer.
That is why from there to the end he had some hot flashes, especially when the ball passed through Dani Alves and the former Barcelona (he already knew how to face River in the final of the Club World Cup that the Spanish won 3 to 0) he showed off his excellent punch to put your colleagues in the vicinity of the Armani area.
But River held out well until the end, for San Pablo equality became a chimera, and after 33 years (since 1987) it was once again out of the Libertadores in the first round.
On the other hand, River (with 10 points) enjoyed his first “Luna de Avellaneda”, which enlightened him to reach the second round of a Copa Libertadores again, and with the chance to stay with Group D if he wins in hand to hand to Liga de Quito (12). Without chances are the aforementioned team from São Paulo (4) and Binacional, from Peru (3).
