The coach Hugo Ibarra left his position in charge of the Argentine Boca Juniors after being fired this Tuesday in the midst of a crisis of results and low performance, a few days before the debut of the auriazules in the Copa Libertadores 2023, the main objective of the season.
The announcement was made at night by the Colombian Mauricio ‘Chicho’ Serna, a member of the Boca Soccer Council Juniors, who expressed that “everyone in the board of directors has made the determination that this coaching staff does not continue anymore.”
“There is not much more to say. We are grateful to Ibarra, but we are here to make decisions. In these days we had already made the decision, but the best thing was to wait for our vice president to arrive [Juan Román Riquelme] and we did so to deal with this situation,” Serna told reporters.
Ibarra’s situation had been left on a tightrope after a pronounced drop in the performance of the team, which is now in the middle of the table in the Professional League, and in the last three games he only added one point, with one draw and two losses.
Ibarra’s last game in charge of Boca was last Saturday, in a close victory against Olimpo de Bahía Blanca (third division), for the Argentine Cup, in another match in which the xeneizes showed a messy game, although enough to avoid what would have been a catastrophic defeat.
In his cycle of less than nine months at the helm of Boca, Ibarra led 36 games, with 20 wins, 7 draws and 9 lossesand won two titles, the Professional League-2022 and the Argentine Super Cup, a few weeks ago.
“We do things as normal. We understand that Boca has to play much better. They did not find a way back, but we are grateful to them. They faced up to the responsibility, they won two titles, but decisions had to be made,” added Serna.
On an interim basis, the coaching staff of the reserve division led by Mariano Herrón will be in charge of the first team, awaiting the election of a new coach, who could debut on Thursday, April 9, when Boca visits Monagas, in Venezuela, for the first date of the Copa Libertadores.
It is planned that Boca will be led by the interim DT in the match next Saturday against Barracas Centralfor the ninth date of the League.
“It is not easy to get a coaching staff for a club as big as Boca. We need a coaching staff that adapts to the quality of our footballers, it’s something that will take us several hours or days,” Serna said.
Gerardo Martino, who led the Mexican team in the Qatar-2022 World Cup, appears as the first candidate to succeed Ibarra in front of the auriazul team.
