There is no case with River. I always lack something. In general, he has been questioning the absence of play and operation, reasons that move him away from the goal. This time it flowed better in the elaboration and generated several possibilities, but lacked definition. In that context, the millionaires wasted a great opportunity to be lonely and comfortable leaders in group B of the Copa Libertadores.
And they tied a totally gaining encounter. They failed to break a Barcelona of fragile Guayaquil and full of doubts. The goal of Marcelo Gallardo did not come out. And that can already be considered a problem: in this 2025 he barely turned 14 goals into 16 games.
“I did not see a team that played badly. I would be worried if the team had not had control of the game, dominance and situations. We were errious and we had six or seven clear occasions, and with play, before a rival who hardly joined us on the door. We lacked forcefulness, but not everything is negative. I’m upset because it was not to tie,” Gallardo summarized. He is right.
Sebastián Driussi symbolized River’s greatest deficit at this cotpero crossing. The striker, who played in the Austin of the United States League and who returned generating an immense expectation, remains far from his best level and has not yet marked since his return. Then, he tried to cut that drought asking Gonzalo Montiel for the penalty to six minutes, but announced the auction and the goal José Contreras stopped it.
Technical file
0 – River Plate: Franco Armani; Gonzalo Montiel (m.85, Matías Rojas), Lucas Martínez Quarta, Paulo Díaz, Marcos Acuña; Kevin Castaño, Enzo Pérez, Maximiliano Meza (m.64, Santiago Simón); Franco Mastantuono; Facundo Colidio (M.64, Miguel Borja), Sebastián Driussi (m.85, Ian Subiabre)
Coach: Marcelo Gallardo
0 – Barcelona from Guayaquil: José Contreras; Bryan Carabalí, Xavier Arreaga, Gustavo Vallecilla, Aníbal Chalá; Jhonny Quiñónez (m.74, Jesús Trindade), Dixon Arroyo; Janner Corozo (m.84, Gastón Campi), Joaquín Valiente (m.74, Jandry Gómez), Cristhian Solano (m.62, Byron Castillo); Octavio Rivero (m.84, Felipe Caicedo)
Coach: Second Castle
Referee: Brazilian Raphael Claus admonished Kevin Castaño, Lucas Martínez Quarta, Miguel Borja and Gustavo Vallecilla
Incidents: Match of the second day of group B of the Copa Libertadores played at the Monumental Stadium Antonio Vespucio Liberti, in Buenos Aires.
Then, Driussi himself was on two other occasions near scoring his delayed goal. However, he collided again with the goalkeeper, who resulted in the security paradigm. The empty monumental, without a public for the sanction applied by Conmebol before the artificial fires of the semifinal-revidence of the Libertadores 2024 against Atlético Mineiro, did not complicate River. In that silence, River knew how to handle and controlled everything, almost always by Franco Mastantuono, with active and deep lateral markers. But without goal …
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For now, in Group B of the Libertadores, plays two days, River shares the tip with 4 points with its rival last night, Barcelona. It is not a complicated panorama, of course. River this result more than anything complicates it because if he won the classification to eighth he would have been very close, allowing him to administer players. For example, on Wednesday 23 will visit Independiente del Valle in Ecuador, for the third cupo chapter. There he could have reserved a player, thinking for example that four days later he will play the superclassic with Boca.
