It is the smallest it will be presented in modern history

Between electronic music and energy drinks, River will close a semester in which it had ups and downs but ends it in the race for the Professional Leaguein which they are one point behind the leaders and the Copa Libertadores, in which they were the best in the group stage.

The team of Martin Demichelis will visit the court again Deportivo Riestrafour months after doing it for the first time.

And they will once again go from playing in the largest stadium in South America, the Monumental, with 85 thousand people every game, to doing so in the smallest in the First Division.

With a capacity for 3,000 spectators and a landscape that is divided between the Nuevo Gasómetro in the background, the 1-11-14 villa, dozens of advertisements for the energy drink that sponsors the club and a community pool just a few meters from the field, His rival’s court is a challenge for River but it will also be a historic event again: it will be, for official matches, the smallest stadium that River passes through in modern history.

It is that he Guillermo Laza surpassed that of Barracas Central in that sense, which River visited in 2023 and has a capacity of 4,400 people (until the start of its expansion works). And not even in the time in the B Nacional that included the trip to Madryn to play against Guillermo Brownnor the dozens of games he played in the old Nationals in which he played in very remote venues in the Interior (Huracán de Comodoro Rivadavia is one of many examples), he played on fields as small as Riestra.

To think that River was not allowed to play at the RiverCamp in 2020, when football returned in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and the Núñez institution had begun renovations to the playing field. Court 1 of the Ezeiza property has a capacity for 2,000 people, a figure close to that of Laza.

At that time, it was put forward as an argument that the regulations stated that “You couldn’t play in a training facility, but in a stadium.”

Riestra is authorized despite the fact that the same Argentine soccer regulations indicate that In First Division, matches cannot take place in a stadium with a capacity of less than 15 thousand people.

In that scenario, then, River will have to play as it did in the summer. On February 11, they beat Riestra 3-0 for the League Cup.

They were other times, of course. From a stronger River. And not this one that comes at the end of the semester with some turbulence. It is that although it comes from two consecutive victories, one against Táchira for the Copa Libertadores, to finish as the best first in the group stage and the other with Tigre, for the League, also drags out the elimination with Temperley for the Argentine Cup and a tough defeat against Argentinos Juniors in La Paternal, where he left a pale image.

And those falls make the alarms go off when River has to leave his house. The statistics are in stark contrast. In the Monumental, during the cycle Demichelis reaped 88 percent of the points. Outside, counting away games and on neutral courts, he obtained 53% of the units.

Then, on the Riestra field, where Independiente and San Lorenzo already fell, River does not want surprises. And he will try to hide the absences of weight. Franco Armani, Paulo Díaz and Miguel Borja will not be there, affected by their national teams. Leandro González Pirez will return and Micho He will be able to count on Claudio Echeverri and Pablo Solari, who have already returned from the U-23.

For his part, Riestra goes for history. “Against River, you have to have the perfect day”assured his coach Cristian Fabbiani, coach of the Bajo Flores team, former soccer player and recognized River fan. The Ogre also said that he dreams of directing the Millionaire at some point. Argentine football offers everything.