Clausura 2009: River Plate 1 – 0 Gimnasia de Jujuy

By: Christian | April 28th, 2009

River Plate ended a run of five winless matches in all competitions this past Sunday evening, narrowly beating a 9-man, relegation-threatened Gimnasia de Jujuy in a 1-0 victory at the Monumental. The win keeps River’s slim title hopes alive, as they now trail current leaders Vélez Sarsfield by 6 points with 8 games remaining in the Clausura.

After a horrendous week that saw them miss out on beating Boca and suffering another early elimination from the Copa Libertadores, la banda entered Sunday’s match with all eyes focused soley on winning the Clausura. The squad entered the pitch to fans who came to support the shirt but were still furious at the club’s latest Copa embarrassment, and their response was noticeably indifferent.

River did not exactly squash fears that the bad times were behind them. Though they enjoyed the majority of the possession, and held a 1-man advantage over Gimnasia for most of the second half, they were unable to find the go-ahead goal until the 58th minute, when Radamel Falcao would find a perfect pass from substitute Marcelo Gallardo. El Tigre chipped the ball over the Gimnasia keeper, giving River a much needed, if not entirely deserving, victory.

The game was actually more memorable for two incidents that occurred off the pitch. Gimnasia keeper Gastón Pezzuti was shown a red card in the 69th minute after he became enraged that a ball boy was taking too long to give him back the ball. When the youngster finally did give it back to him, Pezzuti stupidly threw the ball right at him, in clear view of the linesman who immediately notified the referee.

Even stranger was what occurred during a second half substitution. When Marcelo Gallardo was set to come on in the 57th minute, it appeared that he would be replacing Mauro Diaz. As the 4th official displayed the board announcing the change, a chorus of boos came down from the terraces from fans shocked to see Diaz come off, despite being one of River’s best players on the night. Gorosito then seemed to back off his original decision, and instead took out Mauro Rosales, who was himself booed for his poor performance.

Pipo later claimed that he originally told Gallardo that he was replacing “Mauro” and simply failed to specify which one he meant, thus the confusion. But accounts in the press suggest that Gorosito did indeed change his mind after hearing the boos from the crowd. It seemed to work; Gallardo’s first touch of the game was his pass to Falcao that scored the winning goal.

I mentioned last week that River fans would have to take back their club, and it looks like they responded! Anyone with eyes could have seen that Rosales needed to be taken off ASAP and that Diaz was having a fine start, but one has to wonder if the game would have gone differently had Gorosito’s original substitution gone on.

River now have 8 games to try and make a surge towards the title. Can they make it? I’m certainly not convinced they can. Gallardo has stated that if they can win away to Newell’s this weekend they will be legitimate contenders for the title. He failed to mention that the 4 teams must start winning games, and winning them consistently. Let’s hope they don’t fail like they did a week ago.

2009 Clausura Fixture 11
River Plate 1 – 0 Gimnasia de Jujuy

Scoring Summary:
Radamel Falcao (RP), 58th

River Plate:
Mario Daniel Vega
Paulo Ferrari, Gustavo Cabral, Nicolás Sánchez, Cristian Villagra
Mauro Rosales, Oscar Ahumada, Nicolás Domingo, Diego Buonanotte
Mauro Díaz
Radamel Falcao

Substitutions:
Diego Barrado for Domingo, 46th
Marcelo Gallardo for Rosales, 57th
Cristian Fabbiani for Díaz, 81st

Highlights