River Plate 1-1 Corinthians (Copa Sudamericana)
The Monumental de Nuñez stadium may have seen the home team eliminated form the South American Cup, but at least River Plate went out after a far better match than the first leg borefest at Morumbi a fortnight ago.
Antônio Lopes made his debut in charge of the Timão, but all eyes were on Carlitos Tevez in his return to the River stadium. Tevez had accumulated a reputation for burying River Plate in the derbies with Boca, and now came back wearing a Brazilian shirt. Cue high degree of ‘morbo’.
With the goalless draw, Corinthians had at least avoided suffering any potentially fatal away goals and had the advantage of knowing that their goals now valued double. River, however, hadn’t given up and Santana (15 min) put the Millionaires ahead from a left wing cross.
Corinthians, however, kept a cool collective head and continued to wear down the hosts via lightning breaks down the flanks, principally with young gun Eduardo ‘Ratinho’. His opposite number on the left, Gustavo Nery, wasn’t to be left out, hitting Lux’s woodwork.
Gallardo was effectively sidelined by heavy Alvinegro marking, so the more confident post-goal River attacks were left toothless. 29 minutes in Tevez almost got the equaliser, robbing the ball from a butter-fingered Lux but falling foul of the offside rule.
Roger and Gustavo Nery dominated the start of the second half with a series of progressive wall passes down River’s right bank, but their final shots were found wanting in either speed or positioning. The Millionaires almost netted the classification soon after.
With 15 minutes to go, Ernesto Farias dribbled Corinthians full-back Marinho, but fluffed his opportunity in front of Fábio Costa. The hammer blow came in injury time, Marinho (91 min) getting his head to a ricocheted corner to silence the Monumental Del Nuñez and put Corinthians into the quarter-finals on away goals.
RIVER PLATE: Germán Lux; Christian Alvarez, Leonardo Talamonti, Leandro Fernández, Lucas Mareque; Sambueza (Montenegro), Jonathan Santana, Andrés San Martín (Ahumada), Gallardo; Gustavo Oberman (Patiño), Ernesto Farias.
CORINTHIANS: Fábio Costa; Eduardo, Betão, Marinho, Gustavo Nery; Marcelo Mattos, Bruno Octavio, Hugo (Bobô), Fabrício (Carlos Alberto); Roger, Tevez.
GOALS: 1-0, Santana (15'); 1-1, Marinho (91')
Source: goal.com
