Copa Libertadores 2009: River Plate 0 – 0 Nacional de Uruguay

By: Christian | April 9th, 2009

River Plate were all talk and no action in this past Tuesday’s 0-0 draw to Uruguay’s Nacional in the Copa Libertadores. The result complicates even further River’s odds of advancing out of their group, where they currently sit in 3rd place on 4 points. Should they fail to win their final two matches, they will exit the Copa in the group stage for the second time in 3 years.

Analyzing River’s performance won’t take long to dissect. Once again, los millonarios were embarrassing to watch, as they stumbled up and down the pitch with no clue on how to respond to Nacional. Lacking any true leader on the field, River were a team without ideas, and worse, without the sense of urgency needed for a must win game of this calibar.

Nacional on the other hand were cool and composed. After thrashing River 3-0 in Uruguay a few weeks back, los tricolores knew that while a win would assure them classification, they could also sit back and limit the damage by holding River at bay.

They certainly didn’t have to work too hard. Marcelo Gallardo, a former team captain, was anonymous. Cristian Fabbiani, once considered a game changer early in the season, easily had his worst outing since joining River, posing little threat up top. Not all the blame can be rested on him or his other striking partner Radamel Falcao though, as both were denied any decent service all night.

Naturally, our clearest chance on goal failed in the most spectacular way. River literally had 4 back to back opportunities in front of goal within a space of seconds, and were unable to find the back of the net. Unbelievable.

All this after two weeks of trash talk from one Cristian Fabbiani, who even after the 3-0 loss in Uruguay, loudly boasted to the media that Nacional were a bad team that did not deserve to be in the Copa. El Ogro should have choosen a better time to speak his mind, making those remarks during a recent, two week “mini pre-season” where he left the team to work on his fitness and lose some weight. (Nacional’s coach seemed to catch the irony right away, saying Fabbiani was too fat and would never make his starting lineup.)

A word to Fabbani – Making desparaging remarks about your opponents supposed lack of ability AFTER they handily beat you 3-0 while you yourself are too fat to run 90 minutes strains credibility and defies common sense. Secondly, and perhaps more obvious, when trash-talking, it’s usually a good idea to back up your words with results on the pitch. River have faced this team twice and both times failed to even score a single goal. No one is in a position to call out anyone.

If any team deserves to not be in this competition, it’s River. They have done nothing in this group stage to suggest that they either deserve to be here or that have what it takes to compete against South America’s best. They are a weak and pathetic shamble of a squad who are both unprepared and overwhelemed against teams that any halfway decent side would easily put away. For River to qualify now, they must win thier last two group stage matches against Nacional de Paraguay and San Martin. Based on what I’ve seen so far, they have no chance.

Our third Copa victory may have to wait yet another year.

2009 Copa Libertadores, Group 3 – Game 4
River Plate 0 – 0 Nacional de Uruguay

Scoring Summary:

River Plate:
Mariano Barbosa
Paulo Ferrari, Gustavo Cabral, Nicolás Sánchez, Cristian Villagra
Diego Barrado, Oscar Ahumada, Rubens Sambueza
Marcelo Gallardo
Radamel Falcao García, Cristian Fabbiani

Substitutions:
Mauro Rosales for Villagra, 63rd
Gustavo Fernández for Barrado, 75th

Highlights