Darío Herrera will be the Superclásico referee: the lapidary data that worries River and a memory that makes Boca embittered

Dario Herrera will be the arbiter of Super classic between River AND Mouth Sunday 7 in More monumental. The experience of the 38-year-old from Neuquén weighed more than the good momentum of Yael Falcón Pérez, the other candidate, and in this way she will direct his sixth duel between millionaires AND xeneizes.

Herrera’s background in the superclassic between River and Boca has the statistics dominating who will be guests next Sunday: in the previous 5 matches, those of Núñez (always with Marcelo Gallardo as DT) not only they did not win but failed to score goals against their classic rival.

Of course, in that story there is a very special match: the 0-0 rematch of the Libertadores 2015, at the Bombonera, suspended at half-time due to the famous “pepper spray” episode, which led to the team’s classification Doll, who would be crowned champion.

Born in Andacollo, a municipality of Neuquén with just 2,600 inhabitants, Herrera has been a First Division referee for 10 years.

Dario Herrera’s Superclásicos

• 05/15/2015 Boca vs River 0-0 (Copa Libertadores)
• 13/09/2015 River vs Boca 0-1 (Championship 2015)
• 04/24/2016 Boca vs River 0-0 (2016 Championship)
• 20/03/2022 River vs Boca 0-1 (League Cup)
• 9/11/2022 Boca vs River 1-0 (Championship 2022)

pepper spray night

On 14 May 2015, the second leg match of the round of 16 of the Copa Libertadores was played between Boca and River at La Bombonera, with Xeneize forced to win, as Núñez’s men were left with a 1-0 victory in local conditions .

The match was 0-0 and the first half came. After the 15-minute break, both Boca and River were about to return to the field, until Adrián Napolitano, alias “el Panadero”, appeared on the scene to spoil the afternoon/night which had been a party until then. Everything was destroyed when a pepper spray entered through the tunnel where the Millionaire team returned to the playing field, which impaired the vision of some players of Marcelo Gallardo’s team. Others suffered from shortness of breath and symptoms of illness.

What followed was chaos. Referee Herrera wasn’t clear what to do. Whether to suspend, whether to continue, whether to play with the players Gallardo had available, which weren’t many, or wait for them to recover so that the show can continue. Xeneize fans still remember (and scold) that image of Rodolfo D’Onofrio inside the Boca soccer field.

In between, Rodolfo Arruabarrena’s players did not abandon their positions: Orión remained in goal, the defensive line was armed and all Boca players expected the game to continue as if nothing had happened. But the authorities and the Conmebol company decided to suspend the match, for which Darío Herrera ended the match two hours after the scandal.

The next day the most awaited meeting was held in Asunción on what would happen with the time left to play and in the end the decision was that Boca was disqualified from the competition and that River continued in the race, where it then became sample.

It was better for Boca

After that unfortunate night of “pepper spray”, Herrera led another four superclassics which left a more than favorable balance for the La Ribera team, with three wins and a draw, always with an unbeaten goal.

The first of these was in September of that year 2015 of the first Libertadores del River de Gallardo, at the Monumental stadium. Boca took the classic 1-0 with a goal from Uruguayan Nicolás Lodeiro, who scored 18 minutes into the first half. That game had as an incident a serious injury to Fernando Gago just starting the game, when the talented midfielder ruptured his Achilles tendon.

Led by Herrera, Boca and River played again in April 2016, a match played in La Bombonera and finished in a 0-0 draw. From that meeting it is worth noting that the team led by Guillermo Barros Schelotto suffered the (just) dismissal of Pablo Pérez when only 10 minutes of the first half were played. It had been seven months since Gago’s injury, and he came to play that game and incredibly suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon again.

A few years go by and Herrera is back at the helm of a Superclásico, in March 2022. Boca de Battaglia goes to the River field with the need to change a bad streak that was afflicting him against Millionaire, he chooses to wear a yellow jersey and has ended up winning 1-0 thanks to a kick from Sebastián Villa, who took advantage of a defensive error and finished without problems against Franco Armani.

The next clásico also fell to Darío Herrera, in September last year, the team led by Hugo Ibarra won 1-0 thanks to Darío Benedetto’s header. In the end, Marcos Rojo was sent off, after kicking Nicolás De la Cruz in the face.

Herrera earned his place in the Superclásico thanks to good leadership in such heated matches, in which he didn’t have to deal with too controversial plays, a situation he hopes to maintain next Sunday.