Marcelo Gallardo Don’t be fooled by the results. For him, the operation of his River Plate It is the measure of all things. That is why he is able to go home more calmly if his team loses unfairly following playing a good game, than if he wins leaving doubts and showing a weak collective performance. The Doll He is usually honest when evaluating River’s games: in general, he tells what we all saw and does not beat around the bush if he has to admit that his team had a poor performance or if he failed in this or that thing. He passed, for example, very recently: on Sunday, April 24, following the draw 1 to 1 at home once morest Atlético Tucumán. “It was a game in which we had everything to have a good time and we had a great time”expressed the technician, bluntly.
That game, which for River looked a lot like a fall because it was at home and because it also started winning, generated in the public millionaire the same doubts that flew over this Thursday night following the first half once morest Fortaleza. Why? Because in the game before that distribution of points in the Monumental once morest the Tucuman team, river had lost to TalleresIn cordoba. It is true that it was with an alternative formation. As much as that substitute team played at an improper level of the individual hierarchy of its members: faded, flat, lacking in lights. One point out of six and two productions outside the usual level installed the feeling that River was going through, at least, a downturn in his game.
For this reason, once the equality once morest Atlético Tucumán was consummated, Gallardo left two messages to his footballers in the Ángel Labruna locker room Monumental. “We can’t play like this once more”, he told them first, between concerned and dissatisfied. And then he tried to play down that little losing streak of results and performance. “We have to stay calm and continue on the path we have been traveling”he remarked to them, convinced of the idea of the game and of weekly work.
The squad’s response had the speed of the Kenyan sprinters. Barely three days following that message from the DollRiver stomped on the Monumental from Santiago de Chile and beat Colo Colo 2-1, for group F of the Copa Libertadores. With a lot of personality, with moments of good play and also with stretches in which he was upset, he buried the questions far from his home and in the international arena.
“We were always calm. We do not get carried away by any circumstantial result. We trust a lot in what we do during the week and we try not to let anything deviate us from that path”commented to Infobaealready back in Buenos Aires, a footballer from the squad with weight in the locker room.
The recipe for self-criticism and calm so as not to fall into pointless despair worked. And the ratification of this took place three days later, in Junín: a historic thrashing 7-0 once morest Sarmiento not only configured the team’s best game in 2022, but also represented the leap in football quality that Gallardo had expected since the start of the year. River needed to get off the ground and he more than achieved it once morest a modest rival in their names but uncomfortable and with a respectable background in the game.
If Gallardo always trusted in the ability and potential of his managers, somehow He was surprised for the worse by the frayed version that River had last Thursday in the initial 45 minutes once morest Fortaleza. Permeable at the back and without consistency in the midfield, he did not have a good time and he was rescued by the firm hands and by the volleys of Franco Armani, the figure of the court.
The Doll He wants an ambitious and daring team, but he doesn’t like that River is so exposed to the arrivals of the rivals as it happened in Brazil. “When the definition matches come, what happened to us in the first half should not happen to us. Clearly things have to be corrected but you also have to take into account that the rivals play”, he remarked, self-critical, alluding to the ease with which Fortaleza created danger for River.
But just as Gallardo and his footballers do not get dizzy following remarkable performances like the one River had once morest Sarmiento, they also do not despair when the equipment shows brownouts and marked errors. The coach seeks to manage his dressing room with balance, without getting carried away by circumstantial moments in the matches, and that is why he is very clear that the search is match following match. The operation has aspects to oil, such as the failures in defense and the lack of solidity at certain times. In that is River, aware that he has plenty of room for improvement and also of his great footballing potential.
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