River Plate-Argentinos Juniors, for the Professional League Cup: what time it is, where it is played and how to watch it

River Platedecimated by departures, injuries and call-ups to the national team, he receives this Sunday Juniors of Argentina for the first match of group A of Professional League Cupin which he will try to recover his best version after the drop in performance suffered in the last half of last year.

The match will be played at the Monumental Stadium starting at 7pm and will be refereed by Darío Herrera, assisted by VAR by Ariel Penel and with broadcast of TNT Sports.

How they got there

River is going through a transition period at the beginning of 2024 due to a strong reduction in the squad after the loss of some fundamental references in past seasons, to which have been added injuries – some of them serious – and call-ups for the Pre- South American Olympics held in Venezuela.

Martín Demichelis’ team no longer has two emblems Enzo Perezwho left the club due to a strained relationship with the coach, and the Uruguayan Nicolas De la Cruztransferred to Flamengo of Brazil.

Other players with a history in the club, who represented good alternatives for the coach, also left for different reasons, such as the cases of Jonatan Maidana, Emanuel Mammana, Bruno Zuculini, Robert Rojas, Matías Suárez and Salomón Rondón,

This current River, joined only by Uruguayan midfielder Nicolás Fonsea, is more grounded than the 2023 version, which was unable to take advantage of its abundance of resources having been eliminated early from the Copa Libertadores and the Argentine Cup.

With the same objectives ahead of them, above all to crown a new championship in America, River is looking for three new players to close the transfer book: the midfielder Rodrigo Villagra (Talleres de Córdoba), Uruguayan striker Luciano Rodriguez (Liverpool de Montevideo) and the side Augustine Saint Anna (Defense and Justice does not want to give it up).

The urgency came after the imponderables left by the traumatic preseason in the United States. It’s that they were injured along the way Gonzalo “Pietà” Martínez (torn ligament), Manuele Lanzini (tear) e Santiago Simone (luxofracture of the first metacarpal of the right hand).

Also, the young diamond Claudio Echeverrirecently sold to Manchester City but to River until the end of the year, he was urgently called up for the Pre-Olympic and was included in an Argentine squad that already included the presence of Pablo Solari to seek qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

At local level, with the Argentine Cup, the League Cup and the Professional League, which will be played in the second half, what River have is enough to be in contention for titles, but at international level it offers doubts.

Juniors of Argentina It also suffered an exodus of figures, but was strengthened with some good players. The team of Pablo Guede today he has it Sebastiano Prieto (Tiger), the archer Diego Rodriguez (Godoy Cruz), Erik Godoy (Belgrano), Nicola Oroz AND Maxi Romero (Racing). They are no longer here, yes, Gabriele Avalos, Marco Di Cesarethe archers Federico Lanzilota AND Alexis Martin Arias, Francisco Gonzalez Metilli AND Miguel Torren.

In the Monumental the Paternal team will also not have two very important values ​​as Federico Redondo and the marker Luciano Gondowho are also hit by U-23.

= Probable lineups =

River Plate: FrancoArmani Andrés Herrera, Leandro González Pirez, Paulo Díaz and Enzo Díaz; Matias Kranevitter and Rodrigo Aliendro, Ignacio Fernández, Facundo Colidio and Esequiel Barco; Miguel Borja. DT: Martin Demichelis.

Argentine Juniors: Diego Rodriguez; Thiago Santamaría, Jonathan Galván, Tobías Palacio and Román Vega; Alan Rodríguez, Franco Moyano and Alan Lescano; Nicolas Oroz; Leonardo Heredia and Massimiliano Romero. DT: Pablo Guede.

Referee: Dario Herrera.

VAR: Ariel Penel.

Stadium: River Plate.

Start time: 7:00 pm.

TV: TNT Sports