2024-10-02 03:01:00
River, Racing and Lanús They are the only Argentine teams that were able to get among the four best in the Copa Libertadores and Sudamericana, with the no less detail that showed great effectiveness throughout the different phases. However, That performance was impossible to sustain for the three in local tournaments.where they fight far from the top of the competition and said goodbye very quickly in the Argentine Cup.
With Martín Demichelis as coach, River was the best first in the Copa Libertadores by winning the group stage with 16 points. Already with Marcelo Gallardo as technical director, in the round of 16 they won both games against Talleres and in the quarterfinals they tied in Chile against Colo-Colo and in the second leg they won 1-0 against their people.
Racing, for its part, won its group in the Sudamericana with 15 points and a difference of 11 goals in its favor. In the round of 16 they crushed Huachipato with an aggregate score of 8-1 (with a 6-1 win included in Avellaneda). In the quarterfinals they had a very brave stop against Athletico Paranaense, one of the teams that has grown the most in recent years. After the fall in Brazil, those led by Gustavo Costar showed that they are serious candidates for the title and won 4-1 in Avellaneda, to getting into the semifinals of an international tournament after 27 years.
Finally, Lanús was another of those who won the group stage of the Sudamericana. Not satisfied with this, the winners of the 2013 edition eliminated the last champion, Liga de Quito of Ecuador, and in the quarterfinals they beat them on penalties in a very tough series against Independiente Medellín of Colombia.
But at the local level it is another thing to sing and even All of these teams are at risk of not qualifying for the 2025 Copa Libertadores. River is third in the annual table and would be getting the last ticket to the next Libertadores, but the defeat on matchday 16 against Talleres left more doubts than certainty and a new fall could leave it out of the classification zone with only 10 to go. dates. In the Professional League he is eighth with 24 points, he is very far from the leader Vélez and he practically said goodbye to the title fight. His inertia in the domestic sphere could not even be changed with the arrival of Gallardo: He got just 10 points out of a possible 21, with two wins in seven games.
He also didn’t have much experience in the Argentine Cup, with a painful fall on penalties against Temperley, after a very poor 1-1. Therefore, if they do not qualify through the annual table, the other option is to win the Libertadores, where they will face Gabriel Milito’s Atlético Mineiro in the semifinals.
Racing has a practically identical approach to River in local soccer. Despite beating all its rivals in the Sudamericana every time it stepped foot in the Cilindro de Avellaneda, the “Academy” fails to gain a foothold in the Professional League and loses points at home against rivals that seem accessible in the previous round, such as Gimnasia or Platense , with whom they tied 1-1 on Monday night. This caused him to finish seventh in the Professional League, with 25 points, and fourth in the annual table.which would prevent him from competing in next year’s Libertadores. In the Argentine Cup they lost 2-1 to Talleres de Escalada in the second phaseto add enormous frustration. In the semis of the Sudamericana they will not have it easy at all, since they will face Ramón Díaz’s Corinthians.
The one that appears most complicated in this count is Lanús, which under the leadership of Ricardo Zielinski They are fifteenth in the Professional League and would not even be qualifying for the 2025 Copa Sudamericana, since they are eleventh in the general table. On Monday night, they could not beat Gimnasia even though the La Plata team ended up with nine players and played an hour with an extra man. Despite having overcome very difficult rivals at the international level, the “Granate” has gone through a drought of seven games without knowing a victory. It was worse in the Argentine Cup, where they did not even pass the first round after losing 1-0 against El Porvenir, team that wanders around the bottom of the table in the First C.
It will be a matter of time to know If this irregularity of the Argentine teams is transmitted in international tournaments or if, finally, they manage to continue showing their best level and achieve glory both in the Libertadores and in the Sudamericana.