Miguel Borja He is a goal animal. Their numbers support it. At River he scored 50 goals in 99 games, which gives him an average of one every two games. Even at one point in the year it had surpassed Erling Haaland y Kylian Mbappé in the number of annual entries. However, in the last two months, the aim has not been sharpened. And River once again felt that absence of the Colombian cry in the defeat with Talleres de Córdoba in the Monumental.
Against the Córdoba team Borja was active, he pivoted and even tried to be an assist, but he lacked presence in the rival area. At the beginning of the game, Guido Herrera He took a strong cross shot but then was not in the right location to push into the net any of the many balls that River put near the Cordoba team’s goal in the second half. There was one that managed to score and went just wide.
Gallardo confirmed his confidence by leaving the entire game on the court. The thing is that Muñeco saw that the match was set for Borja to convert, especially after opening the field well with Solari on the right and Colidio on the left and the insertions in the middle by Mastantuono and Echeverri.
For Muñeco, the Colombian is his starting “9”. He brought it in 2022 and trusts him. They even joked when he asked for more intensity in the match with Atlético Tucumán and then they went smiling to the locker room. “I’m going to be very angry, which is more than brave,” the River coach laughed while greeting him.
Anyway, a question arises: Is Borja the ideal “9” for Gallardo’s proposals? If you review Gallardo’s latest center forwards, the answer is negative. Julián Álvarez and Rafael Borré are remembered, who did a great job of pressing and running everywhere, in addition to being in the place of the definition.
However, the context now is different. And Muñeco considers that he has the formula to recover the Colombian, who today has Adam Bareiro behind him but the Paraguayan, who had a good game in the Superclásico, still has to grow to compete head to head. River’s own coach commented that Borja “has to believe.”
And he justified: “He has goal situations. When the scorer doesn’t score goals, you won’t see him happy. Before, everything he kicked turned into a goal and today it is not happening and he has to be calm because if he becomes desperate it can be worse. I have to give him peace of mind. “He creates situations.” Then, with conviction, he added: “It would be absurd to think that he is not going to score goals again. “He’s going to score goals again.”
After the injury he suffered in his left hamstring, which coincided with the arrival of Marcelo Gallardo, Borja did not have the same preponderance in the rival area that he had until recently. So, by force, and with the new tools that Muñeco gave the team, River had to get used to scoring goals without depending on Borja, which is healthy for the team and marked a change, given that previously, in the first Part of this year, with Martín Demichelis in charge, the recurring question was: who scores the goals if Borja doesn’t score?
The Colombian missed the first three games of the Gallardo cycle due to the injury and after his return, he scored only two in eight games. One was in the Copa Libertadores, the first in the 2-1 defeat of Talleres in the second leg of the round of 16 and the other in the 4-1 defeat of Atlético Tucumán in the Professional League.
The other ten goals since Muñeco’s return were shared between Facundo Colidio (2), Manuel Lanzini (1), Maxi Meza (1), Nacho Fernández (1), Claudio Echeverri (1), Santiago Simón (1), Leandro González Pirez (1), Paulo Díaz (1) and Germán Pezzella (1).
In the last games, River felt that Borja had a wet gunpowder. Although the team had a magical week, in which they beat Boca and beat Col-Colo to get into the semifinals of the Copa Libertadores, the Colombian was not fine in the Bombonera when he entered the second half and failed at least three goal plays. If one had been scored, the game would have been settled sooner.
And he made it clear that he wasn’t left in the eye of the storm because Milton Giménez had his hand in the well-annulled goal against Boca. Against the Chilean team he was also erratic, especially in the first leg, where he had situations at the beginning of the game. On the return leg, however, he didn’t even have a chance. It was disconnected. And before Talleres, the drought continued.
In any case, Gallardo fully trusts his scorer. He will work so that he breaks nets again and it rains coffee-scented goals again.