River Plate wins Copa Libertadores for 3rd time

Leon’s Argentine striker Mauro Boselli scored his second brace in as many matches in a 4-1 victory over Veracruz to help put his team top of the table with six points, ahead of Morelia on goal difference.

Lucas Alario of Argentina’s River Plate celebrates scoring against…

For fans of River Plate, until the Copa Libertadores is once again lifted at the Estadio Monumental, the fires of 2011 will still be burning, the graffiti will still be taunting them and the team will not quite have fully redeemed itself.

“I think beating River in the final would mean an very bad lot more”.

River is gunning to win the Libertadores for a third time, but it will have to do so without coach Marcelo Gallardo and full-back Gabriel Mercado.

“After 19 years we deserved this victory”, Gallardo said. “We never had any doubts”.

“So it will be different, the one who does it better, will win the game”.

“Cavenaghi is going to give us experience and goal chances, that sniffer’s nose he has inside the penalty box to finish off anything that comes his way”, Gallardo added.

River reached their fifth final in the Copa Libertadores, with defeats in their first two outings (1966, against Uruguayan Penarol, and 1976, against Brazil’s Cruzeiro), but with three championships in 1986, 1996, and in the current 2015 edition.

In the four years since, the famous club has stabilized its leadership off the pitch and admirably climbed their way back into the Primera Division and claimed their first Primera title in six years, as well as collecting a Copa Campeonato in 2014 on it.

As the current UEFA Champions League holders, Barcelona have earned the right to play the Federation Internationale de Football Association Club World Cup that will be held in Japan between December 10-20. When those kinds of games come along they get even stronger.

It is an opportunity made possible by that unlikely four-minute comeback and the integrity of the side that now stands between them and a coveted third Libertadores title.