Global Courant 2023-05-01 14:01:33
This is how Demichelis considers Fluminense with whom he will face off this Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. in Brazil. Five days later he will receive Boca at the Monumental.
River travels to Rio de Janeiro with his head focused on the Copa Libertadores, but with a sideways look at the Superclásico. It is that after facing Fluminense, the duel against Boca will come for the Professional League. And Martín Demichelis wants to be in all the details.
After the tie against Atlético Tucumán, which allowed River to maintain the advantage over San Lorenzo, since the Cyclone also tied with Vélez, the Millionaire coaching staff points all cannons at the week of greatest combat since the Demichelis era began. It’s that Núñez’s team will face the toughest team in their group in the Libertadores and five days later they receive their eternal rival, in what will be the first Superclásico as coach for Micho.
For the confrontation against Fluminense, River will once again have its starting base after Demichelis took advantage of the trip to Tucumán not only to rest the gala team but also to observe the performance of some players who had not been having continuous minutes, such as Robert Rojas, Elías Gómez, Santiago Simón, Pablo Solari, Miguel Borja and Salomón Rondón.
So, without being able to have Paulo Díaz (recovering from a left hamstring strain) and Enzo Díaz (he was sent off against Sporting Cristal), regular starters, Demichelis will rebuild the team with most of the players who usually come out to play from the beggining. While Emanuel Mammana would play for the Chilean and Andrés Herrera would join the former Talleres, so Milton Casco will play as left back.
In this way, the possible team to play against Fluminense would be with: Franco Armani; Herrera, Leandro González Pirez, Mammana, Casco; Enzo Perez, Aliendro; Nacho Fernández, Esequiel Barco, Nicolás De La Cruz; Lucas Beltran. From there the base will also come out to face Boca on Sunday.
Nicolás De la Cruz got his rhythm back and converted against Sporting Crystal. Another recovered by Demichelis. Photo: EFE/ Juan Ignacio Roncoroni
“They are the best rival in the group and, I dare say, also in Brazil at present,” Demichelis said of Fluminense. And the River coach has no shortage of reasons: Flu is the leader of Group D in the Cup and even the Saturday (the day they lost 4-2 with Fortaleza with a team full of substitutes) came with a streak of seven wins in a row among all competitions.
The Rio de Janeiro team has a great coach like Fernando Diniz (he already faced River in the 2020 Libertadores with San Pablo) who preaches the beautiful game and -without straying from modern methodologies- a regression to primitive Brazilian football. With him, Flu has already won two titles (the Taça Guanabara and the Carioca). And in his squad he has figures such as Felipe Melo, Gans, Marcelo (he is dragging an injury) and the Argentine striker Germán Cano, who has been playing there since the beginning of 2022 and has scored 64 goals in 89 games (average of 0.72 per game ).
German Cano, the Argentine striker for Flu, with a goal average similar to that of Benzemá and Mbappé. Photo: REUTERS/Sergio Moraes
In addition, Flamengo’s eternal rival has two incentives. One is his goal power, since he currently has an average of 2.3 goals per game. And the other is to play in the mythical Maracaná, a stadium that River visited six times (this will be the seventh), of which it lost three, won two and drew once. Precisely, that equality (1 to 1) was against Fluminense, in the 2021 Libertadores. The other matches had been against Flamengo.
River trained the last two days at its Ezeiza property, where it did mostly ball and tactical work. The squad travels this Monday afternoon (at 4:15 p.m. departs from the Ezeiza airport) to Rio de Janeiro, where it plans to arrive after 7 p.m. Enzo Pérez) since the Argentine National Team was concentrated there in the run-up to the 2014 World Cup final.
But that is already behind. Now, the story is different. And in his coaching role, he will seek to find his first victory as a visitor in the Libertadores as River coach in Rio.
