Another headache for Demichelis: Echeverri leaves River’s pre-season and joins Mascherano’s Sub 23

Claudio Echeverri left River’s preseason in the United States and returned to Argentina to join the Under-23 team. Javier Mascherano called him after the injury of Pedro De la Vega, who suffered a tear, was confirmed. In this way, the little devil With the Albiceleste he will have a new challenge, after the excellent performance in the Under 17 World Cup.

Having just turned 18, Echeverri had started the preseason with Riverimmediately after his transfer to Manchester City for 29 million euros gross. And in his head there was only the possibility of wearing the red armband and joining Martín Demichelis’ team in 2024 which will see him as a protagonist in Núñez.

However, Chaqueño’s first matches in 2024 will be with Argentina, with which he excelled with the Under 17s at the World Cup in Indonesia. There he scored three goals against Brazil in the quarter-finals and stood out throughout the competition, in which Diego Placente’s team finished in fourth place, after being eliminated in the semi-finals by Germany and losing the match for third place with Mali.

Echeverri thus made the news again, after a frenetic end to 2023 and a full-fledged start to 2024. The fact is that after that unfortunate sentence pronounced in Santiago del Estero “I will not renew”a media impact was generated which caused a series of continuous news reports on Echeverri.

The South American Olympic qualifiers will take place from January 20 to February 11 in Venezuela. Therefore, at a minimum, Echeverri will miss five League Cup matchesas the tournament will begin on January 28th and will have two dates in weeks, the 31st of this month and February 14th.

This is one of the situations that complicated Martín Demichelis last year for not being able to give many shots to the youngster who made his Primera debut last Wednesday, June 22, against Instituto, at the Monumental. Much of 2023, Echeverri spent at the AFA facility in Ezeiza with Placente U-17.

Given this new situation, in which Echeverri will be played by the Under 23s, River will not only not lose Diablito on the playing field. He will also lose time in the countdown given the number of games Echeverri will have to play with Manchester City to repay the objectives achieved.. It should be remembered that the group that leads the English club will pay 500 thousand euros for every 8 matches played by Echeverri. In each of these matches he will have to play at least 45 minutes.

“El Diablito Echeverri deserves the mention, he is an exceptional boy”he has declared Enzo Francescoli, in an interview with ESPN in the United States. And, regarding the transfer, he added: “The sale of Echeverri is very good. He is only 18 years old, we were able to do it without fulfilling the clause, for almost the same value and he will stay with us for a year. “Things were done well thanks to the will of the boy, his representative and Manchester City.”.