River Plate, current Argentine soccer champion, and Boca Juniors will star this Sunday in a new superclásico in the Monumental, which they arrive with different urgencies, disputed the first six dates of the Professional League Cup (LPF).
The most convening meeting of the interzonal date of the tournament will begin at 7:00 p.m. with the arbitration of Darío Herrera and live transmission of the signals Fox Sports Premium and TNT Sports.
With the right of admission for more than 1,000 fans of antagonistic groups from the River crowd, the match will have an attendance of close to 70,000 spectators and will be controlled by 1,200 security personnel.
It is not a definitive superclásico on this occasion, although its result always leaves traces for the future of the season due to the intrinsic importance of the cross between the biggest clubs in Argentine football.
In the previous analysis, Boca is exposed to a higher cost due to the climate that surrounded his DT Sebastián Battaglia before taking away the undefeated leader of Zone B Estudiantes, last Sunday in La Plata.
That victory, with an improved soccer performance, served to leave behind the controversy with the youth Agustín Almendra and Alan Varela, marginalized from the professional squad due to coexistence problems, and the criticism for the previous defeat with Huracán in La Bombonera.
Battaglia took breath with the meritorious 1-0 achieved at the UNO Stadium, but he needs a good result at the Monumental to silence rumors about his future before the start of the year’s top goal: the Copa Libertadores de América.
On his shoulders weighs the uncomfortable statistics of not having won an official classic out of five directed: there were two draws and three defeats, one of them, against San Lorenzo (0-2), as an interim during Miguel Ángel Russo’s cycle, who that night in La Bombonera could not sit on the substitute bench due to preventive isolation due to Covid-19.
During the week, Battaglia warned about arbitration after feeling harmed in La Plata by a non-existent penalty called for Estudiantes. “I don’t want them to favor me, I want them not to make any more mistakes against Boca. There were already several mistakes that could have changed the course of the games,” he said.
In the most recent superclásico, which River won 2-1 in Núñez, on October 3 of last year, Boca played in numerical inferiority from 15 minutes due to the expulsion of defender Marcos Rojo.
With an alternative jersey -yellow- for the first time in an official superclassic, the “Xeneize” will present two changes in its starting line-up: the Peruvian Carlos Zambrano for the injured Carlos Izquierdoz in the attack and the return of the scorer Darío Benedetto for Luis Vázquez in the attack.
Only once Boca did not use their traditional home against River and it was a 3-1 loss in a summer friendly in Mar del Plata, on January 20, 2010.
In River the atmosphere that is breathed is more relaxed and this was reflected by his DT Marcelo Gallardo, who unusually confirmed the team in a row before the questions received at the press conference on Friday.
The “Muñeco”, with all his players at his disposal, with the exception of defender Héctor David Martínez, will have the same eleven that thrashed Gimnasia y Esgrima La Plata 4-0 on the sixth date.
On the bench will be the Colombian Juan Fernando Quintero, author of the famous goal that unbalanced the final of the Copa Libertadores 2018 (3-1) in Madrid.
River, which has accumulated three wins in a row between the LPF Cup and the Argentina Cup, is a leader in Zone A with 13 units along with Defensa y Justicia and Unión de Santa Fe, which gave it its only defeat in the competition on the opening day.
In the professional era, Boca has an advantage of eight games after winning 74, drawing 63 and losing 66 in 203 matches. His last victory at the Monumental was in the 2017/18 Super League by 2-1, with goals from Colombian Edwin Cardona and Uruguayan Nahitan Nández.
