Boca v. Argentinos

Tomorrow night our lovable troops will take the bus over to La Boca and step into the internationally renowned La Bombonera to play Boca Juniors. There is so much to be worried about here.

First, let’s take a look at the lineups:

Boca: Caranta; Ibarra, Cáceres, Paletta, Morel Rodríguez; Alvaro González, Battaglia, Cardozo; Riquelme; Palacio and Palermo.

All 11 players are vastly superior to their counterpart on Argentinos. Vastly. They include 3 players (Cáceres for Paraguay and Palacio and Riquelme for Argentina) who played in the most recent World Cup and 5 others who have played for the senior national team of their country (Ibarra, Morel Rodríguez, Battaglia, Cardozo, and Palermo). This doesn’t even include players like Pablo Ledesma, Mauro Boselli, Lucas Castromán, Jonatan Maidana, or Jesus Dátolo, who are not playing but would still be the best player on the team if they were playing for Argentinos. This club is perhaps the most successful in the entire world for the past decade. They have won multiple local and international titles over that time with amazing talent at each position. The deck, needless to say, is stacked.

In addition to all of that, tomorrow night will be the official return of Juan Román Riquelme to the squad after an 8-month absence. He is one of the most beloved figures in the history of this club and his return will be celebrated to the max. Carlos Ischia will be managing his first match for the club after having previously worked with Carlos Bianchi as a field assistant until 2002.

8 of the 11 players can score goals and with Riquelme on the pitch, it is almost impossible to predict how the team will attack you. They could, honestly, easily score 5 goals with the energy and talent that will be playing in their favor.

The lucky 11 who will be working to stop them:

Carrera; Barzola, Scotti, Caruzzo, Escudero; Cabrera, Battión, Peñalba, Pereira; Hauche and Delorte .

It looks quite familiar to those who have spent time at this blog. Martin Cabrera will replace Mirosevic in his suspension. Scotti plays for the Uruguyan national team. That’s all we got.

The last time Argentinos won in La Bombonera was in 2005, which does not seem like that long ago, but no one on the pitch was playing at that time. Even the last time they played there in 2006 (a 2-1 loss) was with at least 10 other players (Barzola might have been involved in that match…). Combine that with the team’s well-documented struggles on the road (9 matches and counting without a victory, only 4 draws) and the recipe is set for disaster.

Seriously, look over that information and tell me how to feel positive. I can’t. Instead, I will leave a video of the last time these two teams played, in 2007. Notice a couple of things: Delorte scored the first goal and set up the other two. The difference between that match and every match since is that he received the ball in the area every time, whereas now he receives it at the midfield line and is responsible for distributing there and running to join the attack, which is not a strength of his, to say the least. If the midfielders and flanking backs can move the ball up the field so that he can receive it in the area, things might happen. It will doubtlessly be an uphill battle. Godspeed, young warriors.

Category: Preview

Tags: Boca, Preview

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