Boca Juniors, outside the World Cup: the problem is not losing, but not learning

Boca players react this Tuesday, at the end of a club World Cup between Auckland City and Boca Juniors at the Geodis Park stadium in Nashville (USA).

Photo: EFE – Juan Ignacio Roncoroni

From the initial illusion to goodbye early, Boca Juniors went through all emotions at the Club World Cupof which he said goodbye on Tuesday in the first phase with a flavor to failure after a draw against Auckland City (1-1), a semiamateur team in New Zealand.

Boca had played very well before Benfica de Portugal (2-2) and offered heroic resistance, which did not suffice, against Bayern Munich (1-2) In its first two Games in Group C.

But his farewell, sealed by the triumph of Plusters 1-0 On the Bavarian in Charlotte, he completely blurred with a weak task against a rival he had to beat.

While the possibility of classifying the round of 16 was not simple For the opaque background and with two Europeans in the area, even an elimination fit into logic.

But the Xeneize was from highest to minor and its image rolled on the ground by not being able to bend an adversary than He came from receiving ten goals from Bayern and another six of Benfica.

And celebrated as a title the tie on Tuesday in Nashvillewhere the game was interrupted for fifty minutes by electric storm alert. The Argentines returned to the field knowing that their fate was already sealed.

“It happens about the storm, we know the result of Benfica and that changes everything,” said the coach Miguel Ángel Russowho assumed for the tournament. “We were very hard to enter reality, we must return to reality.”

“Trust”

In the Club World Cup, Boca found a figure in the Uruguayan Miguel remedielcaptain and scorer, but then undressed several of his chronic problems of recent years, with defensive mismatches, an irregular collective functioning and players in low shape.

“I don't know if it is a matter of attitude, but a matter of trust. They are required to some players who are talked when they are not running,” he said Cristian TraversoExdefensor Boquense on the TyC Sports channel.

With the obligation to win and wait for a help from Bayern that never arrived, Russo tested an ultra -fensive team that lacked creation And it was repeated until the fed up in more than 80 centers on the Neozylalands area, rejected again and again by a limited rival, but showed by Enjundia to resist the warm Argentine attacks.

Gunner Edinson Cavani, who had not played the first two games for injury, started before Auckland, whose squad is formed by Students, teachers or real estate agentsbut soon the lack of rhythm that drags.

“I don't think it's so disappointing,” the team's performance said, Uruguayan said. “You have to continue, we have seen very good things and it is what needs to be tested positive. It was a complicated group and you have to continue working”.

Thus, the blue and gold club suffered another disappointment in times when joining are increasingly scarce, since it does not achieve international titles from the South American collection of 2008.

What is coming

Winner of the Copa Libertadores on six times, Boca raised that trophy for the last time in 2007with Juan Román Riquelme as Astro on the court and Russo in driving.

But then he was left wanting to conquer the seventh with losses in three finals (2012, 2018 and 2023) And the image of Riquelme, current president of the club, has been beaten by sports setbacks.

After that lost final in the Maracaná against Fluminense (1-2) a year and a half ago, Boca suffered a humiliating elimination in La Bombonera against Peruvian Alianza Limawith which he lost by penalties in the second previous phase of the Libertadores 2024, at the beginning of a semester for oblivion.

What happened in the World Cup is an extension of the problems that Boca has in decisive matches, as happened against Alianza and in the local tournament, with fall to his arch River Platein the Superclassic and the elimination in the quarterfinals of the Opening Tournament against Independiente.

This new elimination is Russo's first great blowa 69 -year -old helmsman, at the beginning of his third cycle in half plus one.

Already without international tournaments in sight, Boca has ahead the Closing and the Argentine Cupwith the mission, in addition, to classify the liberators of 2026.

To achieve some of these objectives, Russo must evaluate schemes and variants in a squad with many names and little replacement, which claims alternatives for Get out of a negative inertia in which it seems to sink again and again.

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