River 2026: Drag Deficit & Steady Pace | Olé

“You can win or you can lose, but you can’t not have a style.” One of the many phrases from the rich interview with Marcelo Gallardo who published Riveron Sunday. There, the Doll tells, among other things, of his obsession with infusing his team with an idea that he has not yet been able to install in this second cycle. An idea that the CARP threatened to show in a brief segment of 2025 but that collapsed towards the fateful second half of a forgettable year.

And one of the reasons that the deté found inside with his work group was the lack of spice in the attack, especially since the sudden departure of Franco Mastantuono al Real Madrid. Throughout all these years, MG has often lost key players and, when asked the usual question, the coach answered that the replacement for each of them would be the team.that no two players are the same, and that the idea is that they should regenerate an 11 that would not feel the loss. But the sale of FM30 was different from that of other cracksbecause now, precisely, the idea was not marked with fire as in its first cycle and because, in addition, it was the kid from Azul who had shouldered the development of that operation that River showed with sparks before the Club World Cup.

That is why Gallardo is insistently looking for a stimulus in the market. That’s why he also took away priority from bringing in a center forward. The Doll understands that the level of its tips fell precisely because of the lack of scoring options they had since the team lost that imbalance and not so much because of incompetence inside the area. Now, with a transfer book that – AFA decided in the last few hours – will be open exceptionally until Tuesday of next week (and until March in case of sale or loan of a player abroad: Paulo Díaz is a great candidate to leave), River is entering a dangerous funnel: the options of Prestianni, Villa, Andino and Maher Carrizo fell, The more complicated it seems to find that footballer who is uneven in one-on-one, the more missing it seems to be for CARP.

And in the friendlies in Uruguayand especially in the last one against Peñarol (a rival that in style will be much more similar than Millonarios to whom River will face in the Argentine league), The team once again seemed too dense, with no change of pace from the middle of the field to the forward, predictable, with forwards almost always receiving with their backs to the goal, with Quintero as exclusively responsible for generating some play, with I was coming as the only surprise factor on the left wing and with a line of three central midfielders who were never known for stepping into the area and who, to the surprise of few, did not do so on the ugly grass (a valid alibi for the inaccuracies in the passes, but in no way a good excuse for the structural failures) of the Maldonado Campus.

In that scenario, once again it was Subiabre, Galván and Lencina who stirred the hornet’s nest of the attack a little when they entered towards the end against Manya: fresher and more vertical, the house’s products gave another image to a team that at times seemed to be playing much more on December 48, 2025 than on 01/17/26, without turning the page beyond some acceptable contributions from its three reinforcements. Perhaps they are the ones who naturally occupy that role in the operation.

The truth is that River needs like water a footballer (or at least one) who provides dribbling, vertigo, who breaks lines, who opens spaces in the one-on-one. And the clearer the deficit is, the braver it is to find that pearl in a market in which the club has the premise of not doing crazy things or going beyond its budget: several surnames have already fallen, names are beginning to become scarce hours before the official competition starts, this Saturday from 5 p.m. against Barracas. So, it’s not going to be easy at all: River hasn’t changed its pace yet…