Disoriented, disoriented and with a river in free fall: what happens to Gallardo?

River Plate received several slaps in a short time and Marcelo Gallardo lost his temper. The technical director exploded at the end of the match where his team fell 2-0 against Godoy Cruz at the Monumental and the insult to referee Nicolás Lamolina was the culmination of a series of unfortunate events he had this year. What happens to the doll?

The mistreatment of Lamolina at the end of the game showed that Gallardo is disoriented and off axis, as well as the team. The phrase (“I have the balls to throw myself, asshole”) also exhibits a state of fury that does not correspond to the calm that the coach generally tries to bring in situations of bad football moments.

It was not, in fact, the first time that Gallardo had an episode of controversy this year. The coach crossed paths with reporters at a press conference, with Sebastián Beccacece of the Defense and Justice tribunal, who patted one of his own players (Andrés Herrera) on the back in a match against Atlético Tucumán, in which after the game he threw a strange phrase for what his speeches are: “We had everything to have fun, but we had a lot of fun” …

These attitudes also mark that in these times when things don’t work out on the pitch, as a good competitive animal he is and given his temperament, he is displaced. Indeed, it was unprecedented for him to make four changes to the range. And he lets two of them be on defense. The team improved, but it was just a few passes and in the second half they weren’t too superior to a Godoy Cruz who played with one less man.

And in the series against Vélez something happened that usually doesn’t even happen. On the first leg, he made what seemed like changes drowned slaps and this exposed the team a lot, as if everything was over that night and there were no more 90 minutes left. In addition: from one match to another almost the entire midfield changed. Y the team has lost the fighting spirit it usually had during its cycle.

“We had a very clear objective, which was to form a squad to be competitive, with the same mentality with which we have prepared the teams all these years. We have been here for eight years and we have always tried to form teams with the same competitive spirit and we have had a spirit of enormous competitiveness “, Gallardo admitted last week.

In campus training, too there was a request from Gallardo behind closed doors that was close to generating recklessness. The Doll He wanted Valentín Castellanos yes or yes, but management realized he could mortgage the treasure, as New York City was asking $ 15 million for the MLS scorer. In this sense, Matías Patanian, the first vice president, was adamant In this regard, in the statements to ESPN: “From the champion team we have added 10 reinforcements. Seven in the summer plus the return of Beltrán, Aliendro and now Borja “.

Looking to the future, Gallardo said last week that the team should above all recover their mentality. “It will be up to us to get up. This is a great test for the younger ones who have their first experience and go through it (early elimination in Copa Libertadores) and also for the older ones to see if they continue or not, are or are not ready to continue competing. , to see if they are mentally strong enough to keep pushing because there has been a lot of wear and tear for many years and a lot of demand “, the River manager said.

And I add: “We will see if tomorrow the team will become ours, with the competitiveness that has distinguished us in recent years”.

How did these words from the coach fall into the squad? And the attitudes he had? For now, the team’s first performance since elimination in Copa Libertadores has been lackluster. And after the defeat against Godoy Cruz, Gallardo suspended the press conference. Silences, at times, say a lot …