After his second-half penalty salvaged a point for River Plate away to San Lorenzo in their first appearance of the 2007 Apertura, Ariel Ortega had team-mates and managers almost fighting amongst themselves to praise him.
Ramón Díaz, who is a great friend of Ortega’s as it is – they were team-mates at River for two years in the early 1990s and Díaz’s son is very close to El Burrito – had nothing but admiring words for the returning star, aiming a veiled barb at Daniel Passarella when stating that he hadn’t been able to believe there was anyone who would doubt that Ortega was ready to play.
Passarella, for his part, speaking without having heard Díaz’s words, for once agreed with his adversary, although did say he still believes Ortega ‘lacked a little’. Speaking to the press for the first time since his fuming return from the Peace Cup in South Korea last month, El Kaiser said, ‘Ortega was the figurehead of the team. He asked for the ball, made things happen, gave a huge lift to the kids, who’d fallen in the first half.’
One of those ‘kids’, Augusto Fernández, went further, telling TyCSports’ Area 18 that it had been Ortega’s words at half-time which had lifted the side, ‘motivated us, sent us out onto the pitch with a lot [more] confidence.’ The change was so drastic that River not only equalised through Ortega’s penalty, but even had chances to win the season’s first clásico (in a continuation of last season’s form, these weren’t taken). ‘He’s a reference point, and the youngest kids listen to him with great attention. I believe he’s going to be good in every sense,’ continued Fernández, referring to both Ortega’s playing form and his protracted recovery from alcoholism. ‘He’s a key man in training. He’s a good influence for the group. We all want him to continue on the level he’s started the campaign at.’
Ortega’s success in the second half, after being put into the ‘hole’ behind the main strikers, was such that the vast majority of River fans now want Passarella to return to playing with a dedicated playmaker, an enganche. Of course, they wanted that already anyway, but if he continues like this, there might be someone who can actually play that role for them.
Fernando Belluschi, meanwhile, might yet play for River in their next match – on Thursday away to Gimnasia de Jujuy, in the postponed first round game – despite having been sent off and thus banned against San Lorenzo. River are going to try to invoke Article 255 of the AFA’s regulations, in the hope that Radamel Falcao García’s absence due to a Colombia friendly international will allow them to name Belluschi in the team.
And in more River-related news, Marcelo Bielsa has named his first Chile squad, for friendlies with Austria and Switzerland at the start of September, and it includes former River fans’ idol, Marcelo ‘El Matador‘ Salas, who returns to the Chilean Selección for the first time in two years.
Photo taken from ole.clarin.com
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I don’t know if you read or knew about this…Do you know that former goalkeeper Juan Pablo Carrizo might come back to play in River as a loan from Lazio? It’s HILARIOUS (at the very least) Aparently, Carrizo is having troubles with his italian passport to get the citizenship, since the only italian bond is a greatgreatgrandfather or something like that. Lazio doesn’t want to send him to another italian club. So, the joke is on River and there’s a chance he’ll be back in Buenos Aires.
Quite true. Carrizo’s “last” Italian relative is supposed to have left Piemonte for Argentina in 1870 (before the process of Italian unification was complete), and it seems that the documentation provided so far may not be conclusive enough to prove that Carrizo is “really Italian”.
It goes without saying that Lazio are especially sensitive about this issue, as they were the epicentre of the fake passport scandal of several years ago, which involved Veron, Recoba and a host of others.
Ah, this is getting more complicated.
A dozen Caribineri “visited” the municipal records office in the town where Carizzo’s ancestors are supposedly from, and have seized all of the related documents as part of an investigation into possible fraud in his application for Italian citizenship.
I think it is very unlikely that he will be turning out for Lazio this year, but the Italian reports say that his sale by River wasn’t conditioned on him getting Italian nationality, so that they aren’t required to take him back.
According to the reports I read, Ortega stopped his penalty run-up and re-started once the goalkeeper had committed himself. I think that’s unfair but I can’t find any reference to the tactic in the Laws of the game. Does anyone know what the position is?
I was only watching out of the corner of my eye, but it didn’t look like that much of a “stop” to me, and FIFA’s official Q&A on the Laws of the Game expressly allow the penalty taker to “feint”.
See Q&A 13 to Law 14 here:
http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/affederation/federation/q&a2006%5fe%5f1586.pdf
I was only watching out of the corner of my eye, but it didn’t look like that much of a “stop” to me, and FIFA’s official Q&A to the Laws of the Game expressly allow a penalty taker to “feint” during his run-up.
I’ve tried posting the link twice, but the system seems not to like that. It is Q&A 13 to Law 14, in a document that is available on FIFA’s website.
Ursus – I’ve just found your linked comment in my spam. WordPress was being slightly over-zealous, it seems. Apologies for it being so late now, but it’s with us now.