When there are still three dates left to complete the group stage agenda -two of these matches, at home and presumably at a full Monumental- taking three more points River will qualify for the round of 16. However, if he is practically inside the next round of the Copa Libertadores it is because of his enormous production from outside… the area.
The impeccable cross shot of Essekiel Ship against Colo Colo nurtured a statistic that had been inaugurated Enzo Fernández y Nicholas of the Cross on April 13 in the victory against Fortaleza.
That decisive goal in Chile rounded out the trend: three of the five goals he has scored in the most important competition in the Americas came from outside the perimeter of the area. Exactly 60% that is clear will go down as the team advances in the tournamentbut at the moment it exceeds by 4.35 times the threshold of 13.8% of goals that River scored in that way in Libertadores since the Muñeco began its era in Núñez.
An average similar to that of the percentage of long-distance goals in the cycle: 14.33% if the goals converted in all competitions from 2014 up to now are considered.
At the same time, according to the records of specialist Damián Eiberman, this River has tripled the firepower from afar that he had in the 2021 CL so far (20%) in a curve that has not been completely regular: it had editions with good productions (25% on average in 2019, 22.2% in 2018) and others with low performance such as in 2015 (barely 5.6%) or in 2017 (7.14%).
“We generate situations and we achieve good shots from outside, it is a tool that we use”He said Gallardo after the victory against the Brazilians. It is clear that there is an intention to appeal to a resource that his River exploited with ups and downs in his almost eight years of work.
Its 2022 model is not only testing more and better in this way in the Copa Libertadores: overall, seven of the 32 goals in the semester came from long range shots. That they not only closed matches as happened in Chile in Florencio Varela, when Santiago Simón scored for Defense: they also opened them.
Such were the cases of Barco’s shot on target against Racing, Quintero’s genius to take advantage of an error in Newell’s exit or Enzo Fernández’s bombshell surprising Fortaleza. Que River is trying to take advantage of this means to reach the goal has a conjunctural explanation and another aligned to the strictly technical.
Why is the mid-distance shot necessary?
On the one hand, 69 days after Manchester City makes use of the repechage clause for Julián Álvarez (as of July 7 – that is, after the round of 16 – he will pay 1.5 million euros to cut the loan) Gallardo knows that he will have to replace part of their goals.
So, while in the market he will try to find an ABC1 striker at the height of Calchinense’s exodus, midfielders have begun to have a greater presence in the scoring statistics: Simón, Fernández, De la Cruz, Barco and Quintero have appeared so far as an alternative channel .
Now, River has in them players with skills to distinguish themselves in the field for their hitting ability: Enzo scored 25% of his goals in River from outside, Barco 100%, Palavecino -currently on a plateau but with excellent punch- an interesting 60%, Nico DLC 28% and Quintero an impeccable 35.3%.. The most representative being the bombshell that twisted history against Boca in Madrid in the historic definition… yes, of the Libertadores.
In these new cups (local and international), once again the bombardment from the perimeter appears as a good alternative. So that Julián is not surprised once he dresses in light blue. To open those encounters that the aesthetic dynamics of the pass and the rotation cannot decipher. For this team, then, to continue to beat its own average, it is important that it kicks.
