Argentine soccer is willing not to waste any business opportunity that comes its way. In this logic must be understood the party that Banfield and River They will play this Wednesday at the Mario Kempes stadium in Córdoba. The pretext is to define which of the two will be Boca’s rival in the final of the 2020 Champions Trophy postponed that year due to the pandemic. The real truth is to try to have one more superclassic that it will try to insert where the calendar allows, if possible in the first semester and in the midst of the participation of Boca and River in the group stage of the Copa Libertadores.
It is true that the Champions Trophy dispute is signed with the companies that own the television rights (Disney-ESPN and Turner-TNT Sports). And it is very possible that both have demanded that the AFA comply with the agreement. But forcing the definition of a pending competition for three years seems too much like a graft. Nobody knows why and what is being played for what is being played. And hardly anyone remembers that Boca was champion and River the runner-up in the 2019/2020 Primera tournament and that Banfield was a finalist in the Diego Maradona Cup that was played between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021.
As Boca won the two official competitions of that year marked by the coronavirus, AFA resolved that both runners-up (River and Banfield) go to a semifinal this Wednesday whose winner will go against Boca for the pending Trophy. A monstrosity whose purpose is to comply with television, but three years later, and at the same time make a play for the future: if River wins, ESPN and TNT Sports will be able to offer their soccer pack clients one more superclassic than what is already planned, on May 7 at the Monumental stadium, for the 15th date of the current Primera tournament. Round business.
There is already a precedent about it: Atlanta won only in 1960, the Swedish Cup that had been played in 1958 during the World Cup dispute that year and that had never been defined due to lack of time. Leon Kolbowski, the legendary Bohemian president, then asserted the rights acquired by the club from him on the field and managed to get AFA to qualify for the final against Racing two years later. Now it is the television signals that hit the table. And also Boca and River who want to continue adding stars of different brilliance to their glorious shields,
Never in its 130-year history has Argentine soccer put so many titles in dispute as in 2023. The 2020 Champions Trophy retroactively adds to the International Super Cup that Racing has already won against Boca in the United Arab Emirates, the current Professional League championship, the Argentine Cup, the League Cup, the Argentine Super Cup and the Trophy of Champions. Seven titles in a year is an excess. But the business of soccer passion demands. And you have to satisfy him with whatever is at hand. Although the glasses of the past are brought to the present.
