River Plate 3-0 Tigres: to pounce and subdue

With a less expensive squad, fraught with injuries, suspensions and high-profile summer departures, River Plate took Tigres to a war of attrition -the previous three matches between them had ended all leveled- and finally broke the stalemate to prompt their rivals' collapse and collect their third Copa Libertadores. They did so basically by persisting in fielding two classic number nines, capitalizing the only one-on-one situation with the Tigres backline, and being clinical at set-pieces just as they were against Atlético Nacional in Copa Sudamericana six months ago.

For large spells of the first half -and considering the heavy rain- both teams didn't retain meaningful possession and the game became finals-like and dull: River couldn't because Ponzio and Kranevitter aren't gifted passers and Tigres weren't willing to because preferred counterattacking. In such a scenario the quick transition game of the Mexican side proved once again to be delivering when Funes Mori got attracted to Rafael Sobis and deflected poorly just for the Brazilian forward to make an equally poor reception and waste a clear chance. A few moments later, the Tigres right winger Jürgen Damm wreaked havoc in River's left flank only for André-Pierre Gignac to waste yet another chance for the visitors. For those very spells River Plate and Tigres became good reflections of their respective leagues: Liga Mx with play quicker and more incisive; Argentine First Division, more physical and strategic.

River netted the opener with an unexpected combination that goes against the locals' traditional flux of play: left full-back Leonel Vangioni took on Damm and crossed for Lucas Alario to head home between the Tigres center-back duo. As the above graphic shows, both Marcelo Gallardo and Ricardo Ferretti lined-up similar formations that appeared to cancel each other out as every field player had a direct cover reference. When Vangioni got past Damm, he suddenly enjoyed good time and space, but that successful challenge doesn't explain in itself why the Tigres four-man defensive line appeared so static. That has to do with Gallardo's persistence on fielding two classic number nines.

After Alario's goal, Mexican media claimed that the Argentine striker should have been sent off for two reckless tackles on Mexican full-back Jorge Torres Nilo and on goalkeeper Nahuel Guzmán. Alario's nasty maneuvers, however, were done over each one of Tigres' flanks: on the right corner first and on the left corner later, hence illustrating Alario's mobility and coordination with his attacking partner Fernando Cavenaghi. For River's first goal, the latter pulled wide to attract Juninho's cover and to open space for the former's header in a one-on-one situation against José Rivas. Credit should be given to Marcelo Gallardo who persisted in his system despite the fact of having neither Teo Gutiérrez nor Rodrigo Mora. 

The second goal was simply a sloppy tackle from Javier Aquino to his cover reference Carlos Sánchez, and the Uruguayan himself converted the resulting penalty kick. The third goal was pure Gallardo's River insofar as El Muñeco introduced Leonardo Pisculichi -whose left foot is well renowned after assisting for the goals of the Copa Sudamericana final- to curl in a corner kick for Ramiro Funes Mori to head home. It's truly noteworthy how River's goals against Atlético Nacional resemble the last one against Tigres and it makes one wonder whether Gallardo would have relied only on Pisculichi's magnificent set-pieces to maintain his side cohesive had the match gone towards extra time.

    

The attrition war proposed by River worked out as the Argentines brought the Mexicans onto a field of physicality and strategy. Tigres, nevertheless, did enjoy good chances when they managed to exploit their pace at counterattacks: incisiveness and clinical finishing is what they missed. River had both of them and thus we can fairly say that they pounced and subdued their expensive rivals to get continental silverware.

Tigres 0-0 River: Gallardo may retreat back (even more)

Key to River Plate's successful continental stride so far under Marcelo Gallardo have been the full-backs Leonel Vangioni and Gabriel Mercado. When Gallardo deployed a diamond in midfield with traditional playmaker Pisculichi and the squad became thus too narrow, both defenders thoroughly maintained their positions and formed a defensive line of four centre-backs that gave much solidity behind. That's why River gets ultra-competitive in finals and that's why they got a draw in Monterrey against Tigres that leaves all to be decided in Buenos Aires next week.

Gallardo, a traditional number ten himself as a player, got rid of his trademark diamond in favor of a more pragmatic 4-4-2 with no playmaker ahead of this Libertadores's first leg against Boca Juniors. The wingers, Uruguayans Carlos Sánchez and Tabaré Viudez, work their flanks so Mercado and Vangioni are scarcely exposed to the rival's full-backs and Matías Kranevitter brilliantly guards the front of his defense while Leo Ponzio harries whoever gets the ball. In front, Teo Gutiérrez used to drop and work the channels to provide the width lost by the cautiousness of Mercado and Vangioni. Recently signed forward Lucas Alario is completely different: the strategy with Rodrigo Mora against Tigres yesterday focused in making life difficult to Guido Pizarro, Tigres' holding midfielder.

As a result of harassing Pizarro and pushing him deep between the Tigres centre-backs, the Liga Mx side's game-building became a bit nervous and prone to making mistakes under pressure. Soon before Hugo Ayala was subbed off due to injury in the first half, he and Juninho got entangled with the ball, Nahuel Guzmán forced to sweep behind them, and Ayala knocked over by his own goalkeeper. In some ways Gallardo was astute enough to identify the key players in Tigres' tactical backbone (Pizarro, Rafael Sobis and André-Pierre Gignac) and isolate them with double covers. Maidana and Funes-Mori, River's central defenders, more often than not alienated and annoyed the Frenchman with harsh maneuvers; and Kranevitter negated Sobis any pocket of space between the lines with his positional awareness throwing him into Ponzio's custody. It's not strange then that Tigres boss Ricardo Ferretti instructed Sobis to exchange positions with Damián Álvarez in the left wing to form a 4-3-3 during the last minutes of the match when the locals got the best of a now shaky River Plate backline.

Despite the fact that Gallardo tells Vangioni and Mercado to keep position and be cohesive, River Plate get distressed when their opposition launches wingers and full-backs to attack high up the pitch. When faced with Edgardo Bauza's San Lorenzo at Recopa Sudamericana, full-backs Emmanuel Mas and Julio Buffarini showed that River bleeds at the outside. The best chances of Tigres came when right winger Jürgen Damm took on Vangioni: the first half promising cross that Sobis should have headered home, and the second half poor Vangioni tackle that left Damm alone in front of River's goalkeeper Marcelo Barovero. The flanks, the flanks, the flanks, appears to be the mantra for Ricardo Ferretti at Monumental de Núñez.

Gallardo may resort to promising young defender Emanuel Mammana to cover the absence of Mercado due to a second yellow card, but otherwise his side will be as expected from the Monterrey leg. Individually, Tigres seem a superior squad and pretty much well trained, but the Argentines should appeal at their crowds and Gallardo surely may retreat back (even more) to set his squad on 'finals mode'.

River 1-0 Boca: nastiness, gridlock and fight

     There's simply far too much at stake in any River-Boca that those always result in nasty fights, midfield gridlock and packed defenses. These are derbies so actually impassioned on and off the pitch that it doesn't matter whether they are playing friendly summer tournaments in Mendoza or Mar del Plata, the Argentine league for mere three points, or Copa Libertadores's elimination stages: nasty fights, midfield gridlock and packed defenses always prevail.

In truth, in terms of decision-making, the ball was on River's pitch. After their lackluster group stage and their 2-0 defeat to Boca in La Bombonera at the domestic competition days ago, River Plate might have felt that the midfield diamond formation that proved effective at dismantling Boca Juniors to lift Copa Sudamericana last semester was all quite well known to play it again. The diamond used to allow River boss Marcelo Gallardo to attack with five men including the likes of Teo Gutiérrez, Rodrigo Mora, Leo Pisculichi, Carlos Sánchez and Ariel Rojas and produce some spells of beautiful combination football, but it came at expense of being narrow and having the full-backs been told not to motor forward at all.

Therefore, Gallardo reverted to a plain 4-4-2 in which gifted playmaker Pisculichi was dropped to the bench and pure destroyers Leo Ponzio and Matías Kranevitter formed the holding midfield duo. As consequence, River reinforced their flanks and were less vulnerable to quick Boca transitions, but now they were attacking with only four or maybe three individuals (Teo, Mora and Sánchez). The full-backs, as it remains a constant in Gallardo's tenure, were stationed along the centre-backs.

The Boca boss Rodolfo Arruabarrena took somehow more peculiar choices. In his 4-3-3 system, Uruguayan number ten Nicolás Lodeiro is nominally deployed on one of the wings and the other goes for more traditional wingers such as Federico Carrizo and Cristian Pavón. This makes the actual formation to resemble more a 4-4-2 with the traditional winger tracking back and Lodeiro becoming a satellite forward behind a classic target man (surprisingly, Jonathan Calleri won the number nine spot against Pablo Osvaldo). The main shortcoming of a 4-3-3 switching ambiguously into a 4-4-2 is that the midfield components need time to settle in different roles at expense of a clear structure.

Fernando Gago, in this way, endured a tough night misplacing balls under pressure from Ponzio and Kranevitter and could not spray passes sideways either as River's settled 4-4-2 protected the flanks well with Sánchez and Driussi. Lodeiro dropped between the lines but Funes Mori was more than happy coming up to dispossess him with legal (and illegal) tackles. Calleri showed little mobility. It's then fair to say that River Plate thoroughly cancelled all potential Boca threats locking both sides into midfield stalemate.

             

Apart from his preference to always keep full-backs in defensive positions, Gallardo seems faithful to the forward partnership of Teo Gutiérrez and Rodrigo Mora because neither is a classic target man and, having really decent technical skills, both can drop and work the channels well. This provides River with the attacking width lost by their stationed full-backs and poises dillemmas onto Boca's four-man defensive line: should their full-backs motor forward and leave the centre-backs exposed to one-on-one situations with Teo and Mora? or should they be stationed themselves? Both situations happened and it was extraordinary to see Teo Gutiérrez dragging Cata Díaz out of position and winning a great deal of corner kicks for River (which weren't used efficiently as Pisculichi was on the bench). When Arruabarrena realized the danger posed by Teo's mobility, he instructed his full-backs to stay on line and the match got into more gridlock.

One should credit Marcelo Gallardo for making offensive subs taking Ponzio off and bringing in attacker Gonzalo Martínez on the left wing and placing Carlos Sánchez along Kranevitter. Martínez tried to drive past Leandro Marín within the box and the Boca full-back pulled him down for the penalty kick converted by Sánchez. Minutes later, Teo Gutiérrez was sent off and River Plate will sorely miss his best man in the second leg at La Bombonera.

In all, this was a nasty fight gridlocked in the midfield in which River Plate seemed more comfortable than Boca Juniors. Gallardo appear to have more tactical alternatives than Arruabarrena and this looks like River's long awaited vendetta for that cruel elimination to Boca in penalty shootouts in Libertadores 2004.

A very conservative Tigres side allows River Plate brilliance

    Marcelo Gallardo's side managed to overcome both their regretful turf and a clumsy goal allowed by poor defending to draw a match that represents moral victory. The usual narrowness of River Plate's midfield diamond, however, wasn't tested by a Tigres squad that resorted to a five-man defensive line in which the wing backs didn't attempt any overlaps, thus isolating an otherwise dangerous attack. By the final whistle, River had outplayed their opposition in everything but the score.

Tigres, which saliently is a more expensive team in terms of individual market value than River Plate, according to a Brazilian consultancy firm, is a club widely renowned in the Mexican media for its traditional disdain to Copa Libertadores. Although in fairness to Tigres, many Mexican sides share that disdain/incapacity at the international level being the case that, for instance, domestic hegemon club León endured an early elimination last year to Bolivia's Bolívar. Tigres boss Ricardo Ferretti, apparently fed up with these criticisms, selected a 5-2-3 formation full of South American expertise with Libertadores champions Ecuadorean Joffre Guerrón and Brazilian Rafael Sobis in attack, plus Copa América winner Egidio Arévalo-Ríos in midfield.
         

River Plate, on the other hand, resorted to its prototypical 4-4-2 diamond formation with Leo Pisculichi at the tip, flanked by shuttlers Ariel Rojas and Carlos Sánchez. Colombian striker Teo Gutiérrez and Uruguayan striker Rodrigo Mora formed the offensive partnership but, fundamentally, also drifted to the channels to provide the width given the lack of true wingers this system entails. Considering the inclusion of Matías Kranevitter in the place of Leo Ponzio as the lone holding midfielder, this River Plate side remains unchanged from the squad that lifted the Copa Sudamericana some months ago.

As one can tell from the head image, the game's main tactical feature was Tigres's Guido Pizarro, deployed usually as a holding midfielder alongside Arévalo-Ríos in the Mexican league, playing as the sweeper within a trio of center backs. On paper that should've cancelled the Gutiérrez-Mora threat (and it did at least in what refers to protecting Nahuel Guzman's inner box), but the Mexican wing backs, Torres Nilo and Jiménez, stuck extremely close to their own goal line. This in turn left the middle of the pitch available to the workings of Pisculichi and, more important, to the surprise upsurges of Carlos Sánchez, who must have equalised well before his impressive scissor kick found the back of the net.

With the midfield completely surrendered by Tigres (whose basic strategy for that zone appeared to be committing cynical fouls to stop River's passing) the home side almost reached excellence with the ball. The numbers are cold but trustworthy: River shot 21 times (seven on target); Tigres, 6 times (four on target). Possession went 65 percent versus 35 percent. Peculiarly enough, the Mexican club resembled the cautious tactics and the radically conservative approach that the Mexican national team employed at the World Cup against the Netherlands once it took the early lead.

Other South American teams, most notably Atlético Nacional de Medellín and San Lorenzo de Almagro, have used a combination of full backs, wing backs and wingers to stretch the offensive play and drag River's diamond out of position. Of course, those matches were finals themselves and, in this case, Tigres were more than happy with collecting the away point. As it is likely that both teams will make it past group stage, we'll have to wait to see if River can show this level of brilliance against more adventurous opposition.