Apertura 2008: River Plate 0 – 1 Boca Juniors

By: Christian | October 19th, 2008

River Plate 0 - 1 Boca Juniors

Embarrassing.

Those questioning if the season could possibly get any worse were answered this afternoon with River Plate blowing their most important match of this Apertura 2008, falling 1-0 to a 10 man Boca at the Monumental. It was an uninspired performance from los millonarios, who continue to show an unbelievable level mediocrity in this league season. Considered by many to be a final, an opportunity to salvage something from this lost season, River instead showed little heart or tenacity, and the result was a pathetic defeat that handed our most bitter rivals their first victory at our home since 2003.

To be fair, the match failed to live up to expectations, and the first half saw mistakes from both sides. River had the most opportunities to go ahead, but poor performances again from Santiago Salcedo and Radamel Falcao up top failed to ignite the offense. So when Boca’s Hugo Ibarra was shown a straight red in the early minutes of the second half, it appeared to many River fans that the rout was on.

Guess again. What happened was the exact opposite, with River failing to take advantage of the extra man, and unbelievably, Boca would get the lone goal of the afternoon minutes later, when Lucas Viatri’s header would sail over a diving Juan Ojeda.

The rest of the match saw a weak River side unable to put any sort of sustained attack together, and it looked more as if River were the ones playing a man down.

And so, the Apertura is now officially over. Yes, there are several matches remaining, but after the Superclasico there is now nothing to play for, aside from pride, which took a severe blow this afternoon. Unless River are able to make it deep into the Copa Sudamericana, it’s going to be a sad, sad Christmas for gallinas worldwide.

2008 Apertura Fixture 10
River Plate 0 – 1 Boca Juniors

Scoring Summary:
Lucas Viatri (BJ), 60h

River Plate:
Juan Marcelo Ojeda
Paulo Ferrari, Gustavo Cabral, Eduardo Tuzzio, Cristian Villagra
Augusto Fernández, Oscar Ahumada, Matías Abelairas
Diego Buonanotte
Radamel Falcao, Santiago Salcedo

Substitutions:
Mauro Díaz for Salcedo, 46th
Andrés Ríos for Fernández, 63rd
Leonardo Ponzio for Ahumada, 78th

Highlights