Miguel Angel Russo stopped being Boca’s coach on Tuesday and said goodbye to the campus at the Ezeiza campus, after a meeting with the Soccer Council headed by Vice President Juan Román Riquelme, who could not support the project as a result of the negative streak in which the team is immersed, the worst in 91 years of professionalism. .
The meeting was agreed, in addition to Riquelme, with Jorge Bermúdez, Raúl Cascini and Marcelo Delgado, sides of the team on trips and those who are closest to them on a day-to-day basis, in order to carry out an “evaluation” of the work of the coaching staff. de Russo, who arrived at 8.30 am with some of his closest collaborators, such as Leandro Somoza and Mariano Herrón.
Earlier, around 7.15, Sebastián Battaglia, DT of the Reserve, had done the same, the most title-winning footballer in the club’s history and who will remain in charge of the professional squad, at least until December.
The truth is that the rumors that began late on the Monday holiday materialized this Tuesday morning, beyond the intention of the leadership, which was to support the contract that Russo had until December.
It is also true that they waited for a gesture from the 65-year-old coach, who has not been able to win his team for ten games, including elimination in the Copa Libertadores. This Boca de Russo equaled a negative series that had occurred in the 1957 season, when it also passed 10 matches without celebrating.
President Jorge Amor Ameal wanted to keep Russo in office and even Riquelme – who was led by the experienced DT in the 2007 Libertadores conquest – wanted to respect the contract.
But the pressure of the fans and public opinion due to the lack of football reaction that was accentuated in the 0-1 against Estudiantes de La Plata by the Professional League put an end to it this Tuesday.
Russo closed his second cycle in Boca with two titles (Superliga 2019/2020 and the Diego Maradona Cup 2020/21), beaten by not being able to win the Copa Libertadores, although undefeated in the crosses against Marcelo Gallardo’s River, who had dominated those duels in recent years.
In total, there were 59 games led by Miguel Russo in his second stage as Boca’s coach, with 27 wins, 21 draws and eleven defeats.
Battaglia, his replacement, was in charge of the first team in two meetings in this Professional League (against Banfield and San Lorenzo) when the professional squad had to quarantine for a week for having broken the bubble in Brazil.
The main challenge of the now interim coach will be to improve the team’s position in the Professional League – it barely has four points and two teams below in the table – to aspire to qualify for the Copa Libertadores 2022 – it already has a ticket for the South American League – something That he could also achieve from the Argentine Cup, where he is in the quarterfinals and will, coincidentally, face Patronato de Paraná.
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