Gallardo was not Napoleon in the Superclásico and for the first time the criticisms point to him

River suffers the drama of not being anymore. And see how his golden age risks fading. And the blow is harder because at the helm continues the leader who led him to eternal glory and who has cultivated a cycle of success that has made its epicenter in Madrid. And just like Marcello Gallardo it was there father of great victoriesit is also largely the responsible for this weak moment of his team. And this time, as never in the eight years he has been a coach, the fires of the interrogation point towards him for the first time.

Gallardo was not Napoleon in the Bombonera. With his decisions he left the team. And what is more alarming, he contradicted his motto of putting the players in optimal conditions, more to face a Superclásico: he put as owners Solari and Suárez, who were not one hundred percent.

With its proposals and its changes, and an attitude of strategies that seemed overly analyzed in the previous one, Gallardo has put his players in a maze. And the players have not found the exit. And so they felt uncomfortable in the Bombonera. Contrary to what happened in the first leg of the Libertadores 2018 in which he used a similar approach from the beginning on the same stage. But what happened on Sunday showed that the players are other, that there is less hierarchy, beyond the fact that there are still (the minimum) of the warriors of those battles.

The river no longer prevails in brave stops. And the champion is that he has faltered in the big games this year. The two defeats against Boca (both 0-1), the one against Tigre (1-2) at Monumental, in which he was eliminated from the League Cup, and were excluded in the first knockout round of Copa Libertadores against Velez ( 0-1 and 0-0). What’s more: in those five transcendental matches he scored only one goal, that of Enzo Fernández against Tigre.

And in all those games, beyond specific mistakes, poor individual performance and collective failures, there was also evident a lack of answers.. There was no rebellion, which Gallardo observed Gallardo before leaving the Bombonera and that can be applied to the rest of the important games in which River fell this year. But it’s not just the players’ sole responsibility. After all, the one who chooses them is the Doll. And with the last few markets, the team has lost strength.

And if you add to this the unexpected and controversial decisions of Gallardo, the picture is even more complex. Interestingly, the Doll gave a change of helm in a transcendental game with a team that had been erratic but had stabilized in the last few games with a simpler and more orderly game system. And even more so with the three changes of the interval that seemed like drowning slaps, which already happened with the changes in the first leg with Vélez at Liniers in the second half.

Both in the Bombonera and in the Amalfitani, in the Libertadores, to make an analogy, the changes have messed up the team. Even before Vélez they had left him uncovered. And he had also put Quintero at half-time, back from a long inactivity, and Aliendro at 16 ‘of the second half when he had just done a training session with the team.

Based on these applications, these are the questions that are asked of the coach today, both by fans and in private. A former River player also highlighted the concern with a crude sentence. “This year he lost the two classics to two technical apprentices“, he affirmed. The reference was to Sebastián Battaglia and Hugo Ibarra, who obviously do not have the experience of the Doll.

Looking ahead, River must play Banfield immediately and Gallardo appealed from his speech to find an emotional response from his players to secure a win that would allow him to quickly change sides and try to continue the fight for the championship. . “It will depend on us if we go out quickly, then there is everything, there is little difference in points with nine games to play, we have the possibility”, expressed the Doll.

The immediate background doesn’t help. Three days after their elimination with Vélez in the Libertadores, River suffered a severe 2-0 defeat to Godoy Cruz at Monumental, for the League. And beyond the game that is coming against Banfield and that the numbers can still give him hope, to think about the big things, River must first be there again. And today it is far from what it was until before this dull year.