Game on!

By: Scott | February 8th, 2008

It’s back! Finally, after two seemingly endless months of nothingness, our brave boys will be taking the field again tomorrow afternoon for the first match of the Clausura 2008 in San Juan against San Martin de San Juan. It will be a riveting attempt at payback for a highly disappointing 1-0 loss in Matchday 1 of the last tournament.

So, what’s new? Not much, which is the reason for the lack of posts. Our beloved and trusted goalkeeper Nico Navarro signed with Napoli nearly overnight. It was a day that was obviously coming and I and everyone else associated with the club wish him nothing but the best. You will soon be seeing more of him…a lot more of him. He’s real good and stuff. His former backup, Juan Ignacio Carrera, who is 27 and also a product of the club, showed himself rather well last year in his appearance and a half against Newell’s Old Boys and San Lrenzo, so the impact will not be that heavy. No one else of importance left. Argentinos did acquire a new starting right wing, Milovan Mirosevic, who used to ply his trade in Racing Club here in Buenos Aires. I don’t personally know much about him, but word on the street (a.k.a. Martin says) that he’s an upgrade from our dear soccer hair-endowed now-backup Martin Cabrera, and a couple of defenders who will most likely make some appearances at some point, but whose names aren’t necessarily worth mentioning now.

What can we then expect tomorrow? A lineup that looks like this: Carrera; Pablo Barzola, Andrés Scotti, Matías Caruzzo, Sergio Escudero; Mirosevic, Roberto Battión, Gabriel Peñalba, Álvaro Pereira; Gabriel Hauche and Alejandro bleeping Delorte.

The above-mentioned 1-0 defeat happened when every member of the starting squad was new to the team except Navarro and perennial benchwarmer Nico Gianni. Now with 19 matches in their collective belt, the team should have a much better idea of how to go about attacking the opponent’s net. Unfortunately, that does still somehow revolve around Delorte falling down and complaining that he was fouled because he can’t head the ball due to his handicap of being the tallest player on the field. Good times. I know next to nothing about San Martin de San Juan, with the exception of Tonelotto, who is pretty good. They finished 18th out of 20 with a total of 18 points. I think they did beat River, though.

I’ll be back on Monday with all the goodies from the actual match.