River: how Demichelis managed to get Borja back and why the Colombian didn’t celebrate the goal with the “hummingbird”

Once, Miguel Borja embittered River and began to ruin a championship that seemed to have been won. It was in the 2014 Transition tournament, Marcelo Gallardo’s first local championship as a millionaire coach. The Colombian, wearing the Olimpo de Bahía Blanca shirt, scored a goal against Núñez’s team at the Monumental for a 1-1 draw that began to get complicated and then lost the title, which remained in the hands of Racing.

Nearly eight years after that goal frustrated River, borjarequested by the Doll, landed in River and with the red band on the chest he started making the fans scream with his goals. Since he arrived at Núñez, he has scored 13 goals. And what he did at Independiente on Sunday at the Monumental helped him cut a month and a half of drought without converting.

Not much time had passed between one goal and another from Borja – except for the break at the World Cup and the holidays, of course – since his arrival at River. So, that’s why he swapped his usual “hummingbird” celebration for a cry of relief, after he won the melee against Barreto and landed a strong right to knock out Rodrigo Rey.

And there was an energetic but unchoreographed shout. “It was a decision I made at the bank and communicated it to my colleagues. I told them I’d score the goal and not be a hummingbird“, he detailed after the match in dialogue with TNT Sports.

And he added: “The match was complicated. They tried to make the process slow and it affected our game. It helped convert us before 20 minutes. So let’s take advantage of the spaces. We knew that their (Ricardo Zielinski’s) coach would propose this type of confrontation, or delay the game.” For Borja, this goal also meant a kind of revenge in his duel with Barreto. On 7 August 2022, the same protagonists of that one-on-one had been involved in a controversial action: in Avellaneda, a slap in the face from Barreto to Borja should have been punished with a penalty. But unusually, the referee of that match, Fernando Rapallini, after reviewing him at the VAR after being called up, considered it a natural shock typical of an attacking action.

Borja seemed cured. AND he took advantage of the opportunity Demichelis gave him to settle the match against Independiente. After his last appearance as a starter against Racing de Córdoba, for the Argentine Cup, on 9 March, the Colombian had lowered his performance, to such an extent that there were games in which he was not even entered.

Outside of football, there was a physical problem. Their numbers, measured in the GPS, did not mark what was intended by the coaching staff. So, specific work has been done to improve that topic. It is that Demichelis wants his forwards not to be static, but also to put pressure on rival defenders and return to pass the line of the ball when the opponent leaves his defensive zone.

“I hope that the confidence Beltrán has can be restored by Miguel and increased by Rondón,” Demichelis said at the press conference after the match against Sporting Cristal. And Borja fulfilled that wish with a goal of pure strength and faith. After a pass from Esequiel Barco, the Colombian fought hand-to-hand with Barreto until he scored the goal.

“Are we candidates? NO! Not even half of the tournament goes on… We have to keep our feet on the ground. Argentine football is one of the most difficult in the world and there are always teams that fight”, expressed Borja in relation to the expectations of the fans with the Demichelis team, which is the leader with 33 points, six more than San Lorenzo. So he joined the speech of his coach, who assured that there is no champion with 33 points.

The message is to go slow. And with decisive steps. They know this in River, who once suffered for Borja, which complicated a championship for him. The Colombian knows it too, who now contributes his goals to try and bring joy to the Millionaire fans.