River Plate won the Champions Trophy by beating Colón de Santa Fe 4 to 0 in a match played at the Sole Mother of Cities stadium in Santiago del Estero.
Julián Álvarez, at 41m in the first half and at 13m in the second; Benjamin Rollheiser, 39m from the complement; and the Colombian Jorge Carrascal, on the hour, scored the goals of the “Millionaire”.
The match pitted the winner of the recent Professional Football League tournament (River) against the winner of the last League Cup (Colón). River is, therefore, champion of champions.
Both Marcelo Gallardo, who surprised with the inclusion as starter of José Paradela instead of Benjamin Rollheiser, and Eduardo Domínguez bet to build superiority from the midfield, which they ended up overpopulating: five midfielders and just one man well on the edge.
Within this framework, and except for some individual attempt by Julián Álvarez, Colón achieved his first objective: to prevent the collective functioning of River, to interrupt its mobility and creative circuit. And, from there, look for the Armani bow with good arguments.
River’s impotence for not being able to impose his game led to two quick reprimands, those of Zuculini and Martínez. The Santa Fe team, at that point and in addition to its tactical application, once again exhibited Facundo Farías’ talent for imbalance.
The “Sabalero”, thus, approached twice, both from the right, one with Meza and the other with Farías himself. Once Martínez and the other Paulo Díaz crossed to save their bow.
But after the first half hour, in which there were no great risk arrivals in front of the goal and once the game was stopped for the two teams to cool off, Gallardo’s team began to find some spaces. And he took advantage of them.
Simón, blurred until there, received at 41m from Paulo Díaz, went to the right and sent an exact center for the entry of Julián Álvarez, always the most active and dangerous, who stretched to define before a certain statism of Burián and put the 1 to 0.
Undeserved, but a symbol of River’s ability to generate even without dominating (or being dominated) and of the striker to score.
Until then, the “Doll” team had only approached with a deflected header, after a corner, from Zuculini.
But before the break River had a blast of good football and almost got more advantage with another beautiful center from Simón that Paolo Goltz, in the clearance, almost turned into a goal against.
The second half started the other way around than the first: River was the best stopped and he arrived twice with chances to score in the initial five minutes, both with Simón, who finished poorly.
And although Colón tried a reaction to balance, Gallardo’s team finished him off at 13m: the “sabalera” defense went wrong, José Paradela (his level improved a lot compared to his previous performances) went into the area on the right, sent the center and again Julián Álvarez beat Burián in two halves for 2 to 0.
Álvarez, incidentally, surpassed Gonzalo “Pity” Martínez (35) and, with 36, is River’s fourth top scorer in the “Gallardo era”, behind Rafael Borré, Lucas Alario and Ignacio Scocco.
Columbus no longer had ideas or legs to reverse history. And so that River’s party was complete, Gallardo brought in the historic captain Leonardo Ponzio to say goodbye on the field and lead his last Olympic round; Rollheiser extended the victory with his first goal in Primera; and Carrascal took a little confidence bath sealing the win.
Gallardo, in addition, matched his personal duel with Domínguez a little more (now there are three victories for Colón’s against two for “Muñeco” and four draws) and, at the same time, he added his title number 14 in River: he already had 2 Libertadores, 1 South American, 1 League, 3 Recopas, 1 Suruga, 3 Argentina Cups and 2 Super Cups. River, from his hand, fired 2021 as champion of champions.
