BUENOS AIRES (AP) — The River Plate of the post-Gallardo era appears to be taking shape. Martín Demichelis’ side gave their first gala performance at the ‘Monumental’ on Sunday by beating Godoy Cruz de Mendoza 3-0, a result that left them as the only takers, one point behind League leaders San Lorenzo.
Boca Juniors, unlike their eternal rival, failed to gain a foothold when visiting Banfield, who beat them 1-0 and deprived them of a climb in the standings. With its defeat against the bottom team, the “Xeneize” was temporarily in 8th. position, five points from the top.
In other games for the 7th. On that date, Racing Club beat Sarmiento de Junín 1-0 at home, while Huracán lost 2-1 against Estudiantes in La Plata. Moreover, Rosario Central and Unión drew 1-1.
“We owed ourselves a good match”, summed up Demichelis after River’s victory, materialized by a double from Lucas Beltrán, at 29 and 61 minutes – the second from a penalty -, and also a goal from 12 steps from Esequiel Barco, behind the 78.
The coach was referring to the recent history of the ‘Monumental’: a controversial victory over Argentinos Juniors (with refereeing mistakes that favored the local) and a surprise defeat against lowly Arsenal.
This time, River was able to exert a clear superiority at home, notching its third victory in a week and its second victory in a row 3-0, after that obtained Wednesday against Racing de Córdoba by the Copa Argentina.
Against Godoy Cruz, a more balanced team was observed, with a double five and the industrious Beltrán as the starting nine, bringing to the bench the Colombian Miguel Borja and the Venezuelan Salomón Rondón, who had just entered when the match was resolved.
Boca took a step back in the “Florencio Sola”. The penalty that Sergio Romero saved in great style from Andrés Chávez – ‘Chiquito’ also cleared the rebound – at 22 minutes was not even enough to save a point against a team that had not yet won in the tournament .
Six minutes later, a header from Aarón Quirós, coming from a corner, sealed the score at 1-0, a deserved punishment for an absolutely unresolved ‘Xeneize’ in the first leg.
After the entry of Ezequiel Fernández and Cristian Medina at half-time, the visitor improved his performance and created dangerous situations, but failed to resolve them.
“It’s long and we have a lot of time, we have to keep working,” resigned “Chiquito” Romero.
Facing a rocky Sarmiento, Racing returned to winning ways thanks to a superb goal from Paraguayan Matías Rojas and are five points behind San Lorenzo, who beat Gimnasia y Esgrima 4-0 on Saturday.
On the debut of coach Eduardo Domínguez -instead of Abel Balbo-, Estudiantes celebrated an atrocious 2-1 victory over an alternative Huracán, focused on qualifying for the Copa Libertadores (Sporting Cristal visit Lima on Thursday, 0 -0 at Going).
With the fall of the “Globo”, they are no longer undefeated in the League.