The coaching staff has to regenerate motivation in a squad that won the title in the Professional League, but lost in the Copa Argentina.
rest at last. After playing three decisive games (Gimnasia de La Plata, Independiente and Patronato, for the Copa Argentina) in just five days Hugo Ibarra’s squad will finally have a break to recover some energy and plan the last game of an exhausting season that had him with two Olympic laps but that exhausted him physically and mentally.
Waiting for the Champions Trophy (he will compete against Tigre or Racing, Boca’s runners-up in the League Cup and the Professional League) with the challenge of re-motivating a squad that seemed to lower the blind on the title they won in the Bombonera against Independiente and that with substitutes, logically, he could not access the outcome of the Copa Argentina, a tournament that had become a minor goal since May when he had already secured a ticket to the next Copa Libertadores. For that last game of the year – at least while waiting for some friendlies during the World Cup – they will not have Marcos Rojo either and it is complex that they have Darío Benedetto, with a tear a week ago in La Plata.
What value will Boca give to the Champions Trophy? First, the context is strange. He will play against the runners-up, so his status as champion of the year will not be at stake. A trophy more commercial than sports, but they will still seek to conquer it despite the fact that the responsibility seems to be more on the other side than on La Ribera. In the club, it is clear, they need to end the season and then make an evaluation of the squad that will be made for 2023 and after meetings with the coaching staff (beyond what Juan Román Riquelme marked in public in the last hours, everything will be reviewed) to know what movements are made in the structure of professional football.
As in every recess, surnames that expire on loans will return in Boca, offers will be heard for players on the squad and another extensive transfer market will also open, although with the advantage this time of facing it without competition in the meantime. In fact, the game against Patronato also served to finish observing performances that throughout 2022 did not have high levels. And that in the planning for what is to come they may not come into consideration. There were also appearances, such as those of Langoni or Morales that the club now seeks to solidify. Will it be giving them on loan as was done with Ezequiel Fernández, Retegui and Taborda or keeping them behind closed doors but with a more complex fight in the starting eleven? That look, among others, will be evaluated.
The search for incorporations today only has one certainty: a center marker. It is that Rojo’s injury will last for at least 7 months and the shortage of soccer players in that place was felt. That is why beyond seeking the extension of Zambrano’s link, negotiations will be carried out to have at least one player in that position. The rest will be decanted after loan departures, sales and also areas of the field that need to be strengthened taking into account something that was noted: the enormous number of injuries that occurred in this 2022 and that led to Boca to patch up the ideal eleven everywhere.
