Olimpo lost their manager on Friday, Gustavo Echaníz stepping down from his charge of the Bahiense side, whilst Lanús are now starting to plan for life without their most successful ever boss – Ramón Cabrero has announced he’ll leave the club in June. The AFA, meanwhile, have been hard at work confusing Racing fans with doublespeak.
Echaníz had took over at Olimpo just a couple of weeks ago, after Roberto Saporiti resigned, and now leaves the side in the lurch – he tendered his resignation on Friday morning, and they’ve got a match against Colón this evening. It’s a good thing for him Olimpo are going down whatever happens, or some people might have had cause to get angry with him…
Cabrero’s resignation is rather less surprising, since the man who led Lanús to their first ever championship back in December has been widely expected not to stay much longer. There was talk, in January, of him taking over a Spanish club at the end of the season, but according to 26noticias.com.ar, he’s announced he wants to continue working for Lanús, in a different capacity. He’ll be succeeded in the manager’s seat by his current assistant, Luís Zubeldía.
And if the managerial merry-go-round wasn’t confusing enough for you, try making your way through this open letter from AFA President Julio Grondona to Racing’s members. Sent on the 18th April, the letter from Grondona addresses a number of issues brought up in letters and street protests by Racing fans in the last year or so, relating to the ownership and running of the club by Blanquiceleste S.A. The fans had written to Grondona on the 16th to ask for the AFA’s support in their protests, but Grondona’s letter merely states that the AFA are of the opinion that all clubs should be member-owned and run by elected boards, and that the AFA will respect the decision of the courts as to whether this should apply to Racing and Blanquiceleste S.A. No use of the words ‘however’, ‘but’ or ‘in spite of this’, you’ll notice.
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll say it again: Julio Grondona is a FIFA Vice-President. Make of this what you will.
Hasta El Gol Siempre 
Hi everyone. I’ve just watch yet another horrible Racing display, even though the rival was one of the best this season.
A quick reference to that letter written by Grondona and addressed to Racing fans. I think that text is written very badly. Several punctuation errors and gramatical mistakes. In fact…typical of these kind of communications, I couldn’t understand what the hell he (Grondona) means! Seriously. He doesn’t say anything new or anything relevant or anything clear, for that matter. A complete waste of the 3 or 5 minutes I spent reading it. This joke of a man, Grondona, is waaaaaaaay past his time and should get the hell out of football (he’s been doing business and getting rich at the expense of football clubs and fans since 1978 at the helm at AFA).
Back to Racing v. Tigre. I’m seriously concerned about our future. We played reasonably well today, yet we failed to create many chances and we keep on dropping points.
But I’d like to talk about Diego Cagna (Tigre manager). I think he did a horrible thing during the week when he said: “I know there are rumours that the referees are going to start helping Racing. I just hope on Saturday nothing extrange happens and matters are decided in a fair way and inside the pitch”.
First of all…he should know Racing have been in the wrong end of every dubious refereeing decision in this Clausura.
A dodgy penalty for Banfield for them to turn the game around.
A hand-ball by Gerlo that the ref didn’t see (it was a penalty. The match ended River 0-0 Racing).
Moralez adjudged to have touched the ball with his hand when he went all the way to score a vital 2-2 equalizer against Estudiantes (then got sent off and the match was abandoned).
A dodgy penalty for San Martín de San Juan against us when they defeated us 2-1 behind closed doors at Lanús.
Two offside goals by Lanús last week in our 3-3 draw.
And that’s just off the top of my head.
So what happened today?
The ref was really conditioned and it was pretty obvious he would avoid giving anything in favour or Racing.
Half-way through the first half, Moralez is downed inside the box. He goes down and immediately tried to continue playing. The ref stops everything, gives a free-kick for Tigre and shows Moralez for diving! Ridiculous!
Then he had a shocker at the other end when Bastia handed the ball inside the box and he gave a free-kick just outside. But the ball had gone for a free-kick just before that action.
Román Martínez, Tigre defender, saw the yellow card for a foul on Moralez, then he kicked the hell out of Racing’s number 10 again and got away with it.
I wonder what Cagna would say about Bassi’s performance today.
Anyway…I’m just gutted by all these things. We are the favourite victim for most referees and yet we are seen as if we were the sheriff’s horse!
Next week we visit Central at Rosario and we both have the same point-average. It’s going to be too much for my heart. But I’m ready to see yet another dodgy decision by the ref to go against us. As always.
Sorry for this long message…I just needed to get that off my chest.
All of a sudden…I feel a little bit better!
Rosario Central lost last night. We catched them and we are even.
Colón just lost to Olimpo. We are just one point behind them.
Gimnasia de Jujuy lost to Independiente. We are one point farther than last week (we are 5 points ahead of them).
We were the only ones to get a point out of those 4 teams and I think we had the toughest rival (probably together with Rosario Central that had to face Estudiantes away).
Looking again on the bright side…
Ha ! Seba the ping pong ball ! Hang in there. Small solace maybe, but I think Racing is better than the clubs you mentioned, though Rosario Central can be difficult at times. With just a little luck Racing will get through.
I’m watching Velez and Lanus. 2-1 Lanus. Both goals by Lanus were scored by kids who looked like they might be as old as 18.
How about the ManU-Chelsea match today ? Great stuff, but a real bad ending. I was hoping Drogba and Ballack would get into a throw down over that free kick.