River-Vélez for the Professional League Cup: what time it is, where and how to watch it

River Platewith an irregular trend at the beginning of Professional League Cup of Football (LPF), will receive tomorrow Vélez Sarsfieldin the continuity of the third appointment of zone A.

The match will be played starting at 7.15pm, at the Más Monumental stadium, with refereeing by Facundo Tello on the pitch and Nicolás Lamolina at VAR, and broadcast by ESPN Premium.

River has four points at the start of the championship after a victory over Barracas Central (2-0), as guests, and a draw at home against Argentinos Juniors (1-1).

Vélez, however, will arrive with one due to the initial draw with Barracas Central (1-1) and the subsequent fall against Independiente (1-0).

River’s path was initially conditioned by the lack of reinforcements, which was only unblocked this week with the hiring of Rodrigo Villagra (Talleres de Córdoba) and Agustín Sant’ Anna (Defense and Justice), and by the injuries of Milton Casco, Facundo Colidio, Agustín Palavecino and Matías Kranevitter, and the absence of the Uruguayan Sebastián Boselli – affected by the Venezuelan Pre-Olympic Games -.

The positive thing for coach Martín Demichelis is that Colidio and Palavecino have already left behind the muscular overloads and will be available for this new appointment.

In this context, the performance of Martín Demichelis’ team left more doubts than certainties, despite the score being contradicted by the individual hierarchy of his players, as happened with Barracas when Franco Armani kept the score at zero with several interventions and then the closure found the away to victory thanks to the young Agustín Ruberto – author of a goal.

And although there is still too much new with respect to the knowledge of Demichelis’ idea and the functioning of his teammates, Agustín Sant’Anna already trained on Friday and Rodrigo Villagra will do so on Saturday afternoon, so the squad has expanded a coach under discussion, despite the two titles obtained last season (Professional Football League and Argentine Super Cup) and the victories in the two Superclásicos of 2023 (1 to 0 at the Monumental and 2 to 0 at the Bombonera).

The only doubts, which will be resolved in the last training session, concern the return of Facundo Colidio in place of Franco Mastantuono and whether Ignacio Fernández will rest, given the series of matches that await us.

For their part, Vélez would have deserved a little more luck, at least in the second match against Independiente, given that they were defeated in a match in which they would have deserved a draw in the meeting with their fans. And on his debut with Barracas he started off great but as the minutes went by he deflated and they drew a decent draw.

For this match everything suggests that Vélez will feature the same players from the start, given the conformity of the level shown. For this reason he will maintain the 4-2-3-1 with Brian Romero as the sole striker and with Claudio Aquino as a midfielder who will arrive together with Matías Pellegrini and Lenny Lobato.

As for the transfer market, Gustavo Quinteros’ team continues to look for players and the target is the Uruguayan striker Michael Santos, currently in Mexican football and with an excellent period at Talleres de Córdoba, although so far he has not managed to get the market. numbers closest to the progress of the transfer.

Santos scored one goal in 10 games played in the Mexican league with the Ciudad Juárez team.

Vélez will also try to replace the departure of the young Santiago Castro, sold to Bologna in Serie A, for a fee close to 12 million euros.

In another order, Liniers’ team made official today the departure of Uruguayan defender Matías De los Santos, who has terminated his contract and will continue his career at Peñarol de Montevideo, who will extend his contract for two seasons.

= Possible formations =

River Plate: Franco Armani; Andrés Herrera, Leandro González Pírez, Paulo Díaz and Enzo Díaz; Rodrigo Aliendro and Nicolás Fonseca; Ignacio Fernández, Esequiel Barco and Franco Mastantuono or Facundo Colidio; Miguel Borja. DT: Martin Demichelis.

Vélez Sarsfield: Tomás Marchiori; Leonardo Jara, Emanuel Mammana, Valentin Gómez and Elías Gómez; Santiago Cáseres and José Florentín; Matías Pellegrini, Claudio Aquino and Lenny Lobato; Brian Romero. DT: Gustavo Quinteros.

Referee: Facundo Tello.

VAR: Nicolas Lamolina.

Court: more monumental.

Time: 7.15pm

Television: ESPN Premium.

LPF FOOTBALL VÉLEZ RIVER