A New Look River Opens 2010 Apertura This Sunday

By: Christian | August 5th, 2010

El fútbol vuelve.

After what seemed like an interminable summer, football will indeed return to Argentina as the 2010 Apertura is set to kick off this weekend. River Plate begin the campaign hoping to reverse their fortunes from the last year’s disappointing season, and win their first title since the 2008 Clausura.

To that end, manager Ángel Cappa, with the help of President Daniel Passarella, has recruited 8 new reinforcements, among them Juan Pablo Carrizo, the former keeper returning to the club after an unsuccessful stint in Europe, and the highly rated, former Estudiantes striker, Mariano Pavone.

The club will certainly need all the help they can get to avoid the unthinkable but very real threat of relegation. After poor finishes in the previous Primera campaigns, los millonarios enter this season 17th in the relegation table, meaning if the season were to end with River in the same position, they would be forced to win a two-legged playoff with a second division team to ensure their survival in the top flight. A loss there would be catastrophic for Argentina’s biggest club and its millions of fan’s worldwide.

I’ll have more on the new reinforcements tomorrow. In the meantime, check out photos below of the new River Plate home jersey that debuted this week. My thoughts? I’ll accept the fact that this is essentially another ploy by Adidas to convince fans to hand over their money for what is essentially the same product, but what I don’t understand is the moving of the club crest from its traditional spot on the red band to the middle of the shirt.

It is not the first time that the crest has been somewhere other than over the “heart” of the jersey, as in the old Sanyo or FateO kits, but in those shirts the crest was on the right side of the chest, not in the middle, which seemed like a better location. Even stranger, if you look closely at the shirt where the red stripe is, you can see an inlay of the CARP logo, meaning there are two River crests side-by-side to one another, an odd design choice.

Of course, if by December Ariel Ortega is lifting up the Apertura trophy wearing that same shirt, you will hear no complaints from me.