Not for the first time in a Superclásico, events off the pitch were rather more impressive than what happened on it. Boca Juniors’ fans were just as raucous as reputation demands and for half an hour before kick-off La Bombonera was a writhing mass of blue and yellow.
Once the game had begun, though, it was all rather calmer, which was just as River Plate wanted it. Even after conceding with 10 minutes remaining, they never really seemed in danger. A 1-0 defeat gave River a 2-1 aggregate victory and secured their place in next month’s final, where they will meet either Flamengo or Grêmio. (Where it will be played is rather harder to say. The Libertadores’ first one-off final is scheduled for the Estadio Nacional in Santiago, but the ongoing protests in Chile and the declaration of a state of emergency may make that impossible.)
From River it was all impressively calm and efficient. Atmosphere can only carry a side so far and, with River broadly unruffled, Boca had little else to offer. Boca’s previous 15 games this season had yielded just 16 goals. Only once had they scored three and they hadn’t managed even two in a home game for two months.
Overcoming a 2-0 deficit from the first leg was always going to be difficult. The fact is River are simply a better side. Under Marcelo Gallardo, now in his fifth year in the job and one game from becoming only the third manager ever to lift three Libertadores, they have become adept at games like this.
This was his eighth visit to La Bombonera and he has only ever lost once. This was a success as much psychological as tactical, his team remaining admirably calm amid the tumult. Boca had the fury and the effort, and perhaps with an early goal they might have been able to exert some pressure. But it didn’t arrive and, the longer the half wore on, the more their creative deficiencies were exposed.
Even the selection of Carlos Tévez spoke of Boca’s problems in that regard. He may be the most famous player in the current squad, his image used far more in the club’s marketing than anybody else, but he is 35 now and far from a regular. It was as though, with few other options, the Boca coach Gustavo Alfaro turned to the memory of Tévez’s vital contribution to Boca’s Libertadores semi-final victory over River in 2004 (before he was sent off for mocking River with a chicken dance as part of his goal celebration).
Other than one moment when it seemed he might have been fouled in the box by the River keeper Franco Armani only for play to be pulled back for an earlier offside, Tévez’s contribution was limited. But at least he was more involved than last year when his main role seemed to be explaining, in some physiological detail, the exact effects of inhaling pepper spray.
After the attack on the Boca team bus on the way to el Monumental before the second leg last year, security was notably tighter. The coach was surrounded by police outriders, with drones tracking its progress from above. The memory of last year’s embarrassment hung heavy over this game, relief greeting each step towards kick-off – there’s the bus getting to the stadium and the windows haven’t been smashed; there’s River’s players emerging from the tunnel to cacophonous whistles warm-up, but even that was a stage further than either of the two attempts to play the second leg of the final at el Monumental got last year; there’s the two sides lining up amid a bristling of blue and yellow inflatable sausages; there’s the men with the leaf-blowers, struggling to clear the pitch of the drifts of white paper that has fluttered down from the stands – each a box to be ticked on the countdown to the first whistle.
The ineffectual attempts to clear the pitch of confetti led to kick-off being delayed by 14 minutes, the pitchside announcer twice denied as he attempted to pressure the game into life with countdowns. What is 14 minutes, though, compared to last year’s delay of a month? And at least this time the game kicked off on the right continent.
For all the noise and the excitement, for all Boca sweated and strained, they rarely threatened. Their best chances almost all came form set-plays and if there was a criticism of River it was how often they conceded free-kicks in wide areas. Eduardo Salvio seemed to have scored from one but it turned out the ball had ricocheted off a Boca arm before it fell to him. The closest Boca came in the first half, fittingly, was a sliced Enzo Pérez clearance to which Armani had to react sharply to deflect over the bar.
For a long time, it seemed that was as close as they would come but, finally, a free-kick brought the breakthrough. Even then, Boca did their best to miss it before the 19-year-old Venezuelan substitute Jan Hurtado finally forced the ball over the line from about a foot. Having remained calm for so long, though, River weren’t about to wobble then. “We are going to suffer,” Gallardo had said before the game and, briefly, in those final minutes his side did. But having suffered, they survived.