Antonio Mohamed, who left his job as Colón manager two weeks ago the day after Daniel Garnero and César Luis Menotti stepped down at Independiente (as manager and sporting director respectively), is to be the new manager of the Avellaneda giants. He takes charge on Tuesday, in time to start preparing his new charges for the weekend’s clásico against Racing. Meanwhile, rumbles from La Boca, a few blocks south of HEGS Towers, were suggesting that Claudio Borghi might be preparing for an exit at Boca Juniors, but he’s denied it again…
Independiente are enduring a terrible season so far, and it’s surely not the case that they’ve elected to employ Mohamed as their new manager simply because he’s unbeaten in matches against Racing as a manager. He’ll take charge on Tuesday, and start preparing the team for the country’s second biggest clásico at the weekend. Jorge Fossati had seemed keen, but wanted to see out his contract with Al-Shabab in Saudi Arabia before moving to Avellaneda (contrary to the mischievous suggestion on his Wikipedia entry, Fossati is not ‘on holiday’ at present), so El Rojo have moved more quickly to secure Mohamed’s services.
Over at Boca, meanwhile, Claudio Borghi and the club’s technical staff had told Juan Román Riquelme and the other players currently recovering from injury not to report for training today. This was interpreted in many quarters as a sign that Borghi was attempting to clear the decks prior to resigning as manager following yet another defeat, this time at home to Lanús yesterday evening. After talking with his family, players and club directors though, Borghi announced that he’d be staying as the manager. Club president Jorge Amor Ameal gave the boss his backing. A sensible choice from Boca in my opinion – they need to accept that they won’t win anything this season but that Borghi won’t be in a good position to show what he can do until such time as certain players return from their long-term layoffs.
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Hasta El Gol Siempre 