River Look to Get Started on the Right Foot.

By: Mauro | July 29th, 2008

Club Atlético River Plate vs. Club Deportivo Universidad Católica (Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, Uruguay)

LIVE @ 5pm on Fox Sports Español. Gamecast here. Online TV here.

In the first match of this year’s Copa Sudamericana, River Plate of Uruguay host Universidad Católica of Chile. These matches are played in a home and away fashion and each team only has two matches to make some headway where as in the Copa Libertadores, most teams have six group stage matches to get settled in. So right from the get go, it’s do or die.

Club Atlético River Plate of Uruguay are coming off one of their best performances in the Uruguayan League in their history, earning second place in annual qualifying. River Plate are considered a small club in their native Uruguay so their feat this last season is quite the story and their qualification for an international cup is causing quite the furor among their few but very excited fans. Still, River ended their competition in the Uruguayan playoffs with a fourth place finish and qualification into this competition.

Their player of the season, Robert Flores, has since moved on (on loan from Villareal to River Plate of Argentina) River Plate still has most of their line-up intact. Lots of young players line up for River but injuries will be the key tonight. Leandro Ezquerra, Flores’ natural replacement is out until next year with a torn ACL and Henry Gimenez, the team’s leading goalscorer has an injury to his ankle keeping him on the bench at the start of tonight’s match. But they’ll still have Pablo Tiscornia, Mauricio Prieto and Bruno Montelongo on the pitch for them, all three of which were money for them last season.

While River has logged some great performances in their local league they are suffering from the lack of experience to close out tight matches. They play a fast, offensive game which has become a hallmark of coach Juan Ramón Carrasco but because of that, they are often left exposed at the back.

You might remember Universidad Catolica from their Group 5 performances where they were eliminated on the last day of group play by Club América of Mexico. Universidad Católica qualified for the Copa Sudamericana by finishing in 2nd place in the 2008 Chilean Apertura, behind only 1st place team Ñublense, also qualified for this competition.

While Católica has lost many players to loans ending or transfers, the team can still boast an experienced line up. While they’ve added Milovan Mirosevic and Jeremias Caggiano it seems, Caggiano may get some bench time with Mirosevic out due to injury.

I expect Católica to play a more counterattacking style tonight, waiting to see if they can keep River Plate under wraps and then try to take advantage of their exposed back line.

Bottom Line: This is not the best version of River Plate due to a key transfer (Robert Flores) but they could still make things difficult for Católica. If there’s an edge, it goes to the Chilean side but they are the away side tonight.

My pick: 1-1. They’ll decide the team who advances in Santiago on the 7th of August.

In the meantime, feel free to check the CONMEBOL website for results and information about upcoming matches and for those of you in need of a bracket to get your heads around the competition, here it is.