Win with your head: because Boca overcame River on the mental level

Mouth is the owner of Super classic. It will be written in the book of duels against River that this 9/11 they beat him 1-0 with a header by Dario Benedetto. Put your head, use your head, win with your head. The venue has not only prevailed in football, but has also defeated its rival on a mental level. How to feed that old adage that football is not played only with the feet.

The first to play are the coaches. They play it long before the game starts. In fact, when the ball starts rolling, there isn’t much to do. But in the anteroom, both of them Hugo Ibarra What Marcello Gallardo they made the preview a chessboard.

First the Armani tear, then the Solari one. Gallardo was injured, he tried to psychologically unbalance his colleague from Formosa, a teammate in a remote and forgotten past. Black did his duty with red. But he didn’t go into the exchange of blows. In the end, they were all appetizers.

Nor by the media. Ibarra said in an impromptu press conference – at the same time as his rival – and was measured and calm. Gallardo, on the other hand, intervened in the previous one and showed the plaque of his large and lucky cycle at the helm of the Millionaire: “We feel comfortable going to the Bombonera,” he said.. But the opposite happened.

When the match started on the Boca pitch, the locals were more determined, more focused; a little good, but with an indestructible will. do of “Mouth, mouth, mouth, egg, egg, egg”, a cult. And Xeneize has won almost all individual duels. River balanced play from play, but it didn’t hurt. He was with the head.

On the pitch there was a determined team, behind an idea, with a clear search: to go to every ball as if it were the last, retrieve it in the opponent’s field and try to play with his three maneuvering midfielders: Pol Fernandez, Martin Payero and Juan Ramirez. The visiting players, on the other hand, were bewildered with a different pattern than usual.

Benedetto’s header is a perfect postcard for the match. He was with the game, he was with the egg; but above all he was with the head. In that aspect, Boca went over the river. With the 1-0 the union between the team and the public was remarkable. When the legs were missing, people’s breaths rose so much that the players drew strength from where it was gone.

River’s end was also with his head. But he was desperate. The mental part played against Gallardo’s team; unbalanced, he tried as best he could to get a draw that seemed like a utopia. He collided with a yellow-blue wall: he attacked the second half against the goal of Casa Amarilla and the field crashed into him.

Boca enjoyed the victory, after all, because they scored the goal. That it was a header is another anecdote that will remain in the history of Superclásico. Because football is played with the feet and with the head. Boca used it better.