Rosario Central v Gimnasia de la Plata

There are lots of changes happening at Rosario Central. The start of the Liga Profesional season with manager Leandro Somoza was awful, but that had to do with the lack of players. They let several people go and replacements didn’t come, so they mostly had young kids on the bench. The first eleven was just about competitive, but the board were very slow with new signings. Somoza didn’t feel like the board trusted him, so he resigned.

He was probably right because a few days later Rosario presented former Manchester United and City striker Carlos Tévez as their new manager and now a lot seems possible. This is Tevez’s first job as a manager and it doesn’t look like an easy task. So far two new players have been signed and several others are rumoured, but the team is still far from ready. Unless the current team will suddenly improve significantly, there is no reason to believe that the inexperienced manager will immediately turn this around.

Gimnasia are having a good season so far. They lost winger Carlos Carbonero to Racing and top goalscorer Cristian Tarragona with a bad injury that keeps him out for the rest of the year, but they claimed a steady victory over Racing last week, which makes me fancy them for a result. Rosario’s took a gamble with Tévez, but with the current squad it is very hard to see him turn things around, so it is hard to see Rosario claim the victory here.

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Boca Juniors v Union de Sante Fe

Boca Juniors are in great form, with Sebastián Villa and young kid Exequiel Zeballos as their star players in recent affairs. Especially Villa has been unstoppable this season. The Colombian winger has been charged with domestic abuse and could be facing prison time, but while the court case is going on, he has been Boca’s most important player. 20-year-old Zeballos was mostly a fringe player last season, but it looks like he is improving each week and scored three goals in the last two games, which sparked attention from several European sides. However, the two and several other regular starters might not play, as Boca are in the Copa Libertadores round of 16 against Corinthians on Tuesday and players might be rested.

Unión got a bit of a beating from River Plate last weekend. They weren’t terrible, but River were clinical and beat them 5-1 in Santa Fe. Juan Portillo is back from suspension and could return to the starting XI, but whether that is enough to stop Boca is hard to say. Manager Gustavo Múnua will follow this game from his home, as he tested positive for Covid, but for the rest his side will be at full strength.

Because of the tough Copa Libertadores match ahead, Boca might not go all out in this game. Both teams have scored and conceded lots of goals in recent games, but with the Libertadores game coming up the home side could rest some players, while it is expected that Unión will focus on the defence, to avoid something similar to the beating they got from River. That means that this could be a cagey game with few goals.

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River Plate vs Lanús

After several weeks with a decimated squad, mostly because of international games, last weekend River Plate were complete again and that immediately came with a 5-1 away victory over Unión de Santa Fe. Julian Álvarez, who may be in his last weeks at River looked sharp and even his replacement Braian Romero, who is not a bad player, but had gone through a rough patch this year, scored a clinical goal.

Romero might start again this week, as River have the important Copa Libertadores game against Vélez Sarsfield coming up on Wednesday. River don’t have to travel far for that game and have four days to recover, so there is no reason for manager Marcelo Gallardo to leave lots of players out. Because of the difficult start to the season River are already four points behind rivals Boca Juniors for example and in this league set-up without play-offs, they can’t just give games away like last season. I suspect they won’t be resting too many players and against Lanús that should make them big favourites.

Lanús lost striker José Lopez to Palmeiras, but almost 42-year-old striker Pepe Sand is back. Incredibly, Sand is still often a key player up front and scores easily, but generally, Lanús look weak. I suspect River will have a pretty easy home game, despite the Copa Libertadores duty coming up.

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