Can anyone imagine Real Madrid making League champion Barça on the last day, at the last minute? Or the reverse, Barça facilitating a success for the whites? Well, that is exactly what happened on Sunday night in Argentina, with Boca Juniors and River Plate as protagonists, the irreconcilable archenemies, the most recalcitrant rivalry on the planet of football, who lived through a crazy championship final with Xeneize finally as champion.
In a movie script that Sorín, Campanella, Bielinsky or Aristarain would have perfectly brought to the big screen, the Professional League reached its final chapter with a double confrontation between the two great Buenos Aires players against the two teams from Avellaneda, Racing and Independiente –whose fans They also take to the kill, for a reason it is considered the second Argentine classic.
The previous 26 days wanted Boca to reach the last game as leader with 51 points and Racing second with 50. The blue and gold received Independiente (who did not play anything, 14th), and Racing hosted River Plate , who with 44 points had no other options than to facilitate the victory of his close enemy's rival.
But not. The millionaires, directed for the last time by Marcelo Gallardo, personification of integrity and fair-play, did what the first commandment of honesty in sports dictates: go out to win, without incentives of briefcases or laziness to harm a third, no matter how much the hated citizen neighbor is.
So, due to the whims of football, Boca Juniors did not know or could not finish off their title with a victory over Independiente (2-2, with Avellaneda's team tied in 81), and had to depend on the result of Racing-River, that in the 80th minute it was 1-1... The final stretch in the Avellaneda cylinder was heart-stopping. And a whole exercise in sportsmanship by River, for playing without speculating and for seeking victory: his goalkeeper Franco Armani saved a penalty in the 89th minute and six minutes later, in added time, Miguel Borja made it 1-2 that left the team without a title. Racing and delivered it to Boca Juniors. The candy box, which was waiting pending the transistor at the end of Avellaneda, exploded with joy and gratitude to the eternal rival. And in the same proportion, immediately, on River Plate's social networks, their fans cursed so much honesty. “The game they had to lose, they win. They played all year for them, h.d.p.”, was the softest thing that some of the more than 5,000 comments on River Plate's Twitter collected, which was filled with memes from Boca fans and sarcastic thanks to Marcelo Gallardo.
Argentina returned to the couch, divided into another eternal debate between detractors of fair-play in pursuit of maintaining the essence of rivalry, and champions of sportsmanship, that soccer leads the cleaning up of a decrepit society. Muñeco Gallardo, an institution in River, lined up on this side, leaving a reflection, a whole life lesson: “We had to protect our intelligence and dignity. In a country where everything is suspected of everything, where everything is so crossed, where everything is so petty and everything seems empty of values, we, from football, sometimes have the opportunity to sow seeds that mean that we can have respect and dignity for the profession, for football and the passion that this sport generates in us. I understand that there are angry or frustrated fans, but it was the way and the values that we wanted to represent and transmit, beyond winning or losing”.
