Juan Román Riquelme and Andrés D’Alessandro are recent favourites on either side of the River – Boca divide, and there’s been talk on Wednesday that either or both of them may be on the way back home soon. It seems, however, that for now, that won’t be happening. Riquelme admitted he’s not prepared to sacrifice the money he’s on at Villarreal, whilst D’Alessandro left things rather less definite when interviewed about Ramón Díaz’s possible return to River.
Riquelme is on his way back from Buenos Aires to Vila Real as I type, and spoke before he took off about the contract negotiations he was involved in with Boca after Villarreal reportedly agreed a fee with the directors of Riquelme’s boyhood club. ‘There’s nothing agreed yet,’ he explained, because he has a contract with Villarreal until 2009 and doesn’t want to earn ‘one peso less nor more’ than that would give him. He reiterated his statement of a few months ago, though, that if he came back to Boca for two years, he’d be prepared to play for free for a third. ‘If everything was agreed,’ however, ‘I wouldn’t be getting onto an aeroplane.’
D’Alessandro, meanwhile, was being interviewed by Olé after San Lorenzo director Rafael Savino stated that his club were unable to match River Plate’s contract offer to manager Ramón Díaz. D’Alessandro is thought to be one of the player Díaz would be trying to (re-) sign for River if he came in. ‘With him, I’d go anywhere,’ said the Real Zaragoza man, who was brought through the youth side and into the first team at River under Díaz’s tutelage. But El Cabezón is contracted to the Spanish side until 2011, and says he has no plans to ignore his contract. If Ramón called as manager of River, however, he’d have to at least sit down and talk.
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