minute by minute by the Professional League

River visited Sarmiento de Junín at the Eva Perón Stadium for date number 8 of the Professional League. For this match, Martín Demichelis decided to practically repeat the same team that he used against Godoy Cruz, although he only had to make one modification since Nicolás De La Cruz was injured during the week and Esequiel Barco entered in his place.

The game started totally favorable for El Más Grande who, after four minutes, already received a penalty in his favour. Rodrigo Aliendro finished off the goal and García de Sarmiento touched the ball with his hand in the area and the match referee did not hesitate to charge a penalty. Lucas Beltrán executed it in a great way and established the 1 to 0 for the Millionaire. The following minutes were a monologue by River that was able to stretch the advantage.

In general, the whole team was very good.: the solid defense and the wings climbing judiciously, the midfield was an orchestra and its director was Nacho Fernández, the clearest player of the first half. Upstairs was Beltrán who created danger, pressed and was decisive to open the scoring.

Sarmiento had his own: after nine minutes and after an error by Caso it was Toledo who went hand in hand with Armani but defined over the crossbar. At minute 26, the Octopus reappeared with two sensational interventions, the first against Gallardo and the second against Gondou. Before that double arrival of the local, River had warned Paradela -the shot went wide- and with Beltrán, who shot Meza and the goalkeeper responded well.

In the final minutes of the first half, River lowered the intensity a bit and left its dominance clear, but it was also vastly superior to the rival and the 1-0 score with which they went to the locker room was more than deserved. The high points of Martín Demichelis’s team in the first half were Lucas Beltrán, Nacho Fernández and Enzo Díaz.

The second half began extremely even, neither of them became the owner of the ball and in fact they lent it to them a lot in the first minutes. Palavecino entered after thirteen minutes and Demichelis’s team improved in creating play. At 21 minutes Aliendro warned but the ball went over the crossbar, four minutes later Rondón did the same but he hit it very badly and the ball went outside.

At minute 28, River settled the game and did so through a great goal from Agustín Palavecino. Then there was great news for all of River since at 28 Matías Suárez entered, who had not played since October 2022 and did very well. At 41 Rondón warned, at 43 Solari and with time up, Armani saved a tremendous ball from Melano. River won 2-0 and was momentarily the leader of the Professional League, at least until San Lorenzo visits Newell’s next Monday.

FORMATIONS

RIVER PLATE (4-4-2): 1-Franco Armani; 20-Milton Helmet, 14-Leandro Gonzalez, 17-Paulo Diaz, 13-Enzo Diaz; 24-Enzo Perez, 29-Rodrigo Aliendro, 26-Jose Paradela, 10-Ignacio Fernandez; 21-Ezequiel Ship and 18-Lucas Beltran. DT: Martin Demichelis.

Deputies: 33-Ezekiel Centurion, 15-Andrew Herrera, 2-Robert Rojas, 4-Jonathan Maidana, 23-Emanuel Mammana, 30-Elias Gomez, 8-Agustin Palavecino, 36-Pablo Solari, 35-Franco Alfonso, 7-Matias Suarez, 9-Michael Angel Borja and 25-Solomon Knee.

SARMIENTO (4-5-2): 32-Table; 25-Bettini, 29-Garcia, 2-Insaurralde, 33-Diaz; 10-Quiroga, 52-Mendez, 5-Martinez, 14-Gallardo; 9-Gondou and 22-Toledo DT: Israel Damonte.

Deputies: Devecchi, Garnier, Sbuttoni, Hernandez, Rosso, Monaco, Cougo, Femia, Melano, Mancilla, Lopez and Kaprof.

MATCH DATA

Hour: 21.30 hs.

Estadio: Eva Peron

TV: TNT Sports

Referee: Ariel Penell

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