Español
m

The Boca Juniors dynasty is dead

Posted by Juan Arango 3.06.2010





Juan Román Riquelme after Boca's loss to Racing Club (Sport Soccer)

There is a great deal of heartache the emanated from the collective Boca faithful after the Xeneize lost to Racing Club on Saturday night 2-1 at La Bombonera.

There were no answers on defense. There was no response on offense.

There are lots of questions marks that surround Boca Juniors both on the administrative and athletic scenes. On one end, the fans are starting to turn up the heat on club president Jorge Amor Ameal as well as other club officials as being the actual culprits in this entire fiasco.

Their inability to sign top players as well as low performance by some of the team's historic players and the inability to generate a turnover has finally caught up to them. A decade of Palermo, Riquelme, Battaglia, Ibarra, and others was bound to end and there has really been no one to take over.

Two of the most missed players have been Genoa forward Rodrigo Palacio and Almería midfielder Fabián Vargas. Palacio's pace and goalscoring ability were fundamental in helping Boca's dynasty maintain its relevance mid-decade. He also made the Xeneize attack lethal with his constant movement around Palermo.

With Mauro Boselli and Ricardo Noir gone, Boca now do not have a legitimate scorer to accompany Palermo. It has been difficult to compliment Palermo especially with him scoring six goals in eight matches so far in this Clausura tournament. The only one that can truly say is a complimentary scoring threat to Palermo is Riquelme. That has not been the case as the second leading scorer for Boca is Gary Medel with two.

Vargas was one of the best players in Argentine football. He came back from Internacional to replace Fernando Gago and Ever Banega and quickly became once again one of the most important cogs of the Boca midfield alongside Sebastián Battaglia. Once Alfio Basile returned, the Colombian international was not in his plans and was "banished" to Almería.

Since then there has been no replacement and the Boca backline has been attacked more than the Clarín group by the Kirchner administration. What was once almost an impenetrable fortress is now something that anyone can get to.

"What happened this past summer was not normal. (Alves) is doing the impossible to find a team he was given four days before the season and it is becoming more difficult to find it with every passing game."- Juan Román Riquelme

The Alves conundrum
Abel Alves was given a bad hand as he was given the first team four days before the beginning of the Clausura. He had the balls to get bench Boca idol Roberto Abbondanzieri who was immovable during the second Alfio Basile stage even though he was extremely mistake prone.

Javier García has done a very good job of playing in goal despite having a porous defense. If it weren't for him and a Gary Medel header, Boca would have lost to Vélez Sarsfield midweek and the contest today would have been another potential 4-4 classic.

Fabián Monzón has severe lapses on defense and is a compromising player when he goes out with reckless abandon on the attack. His admission that he "drifts off" has cursed his play at the club level.

There are lots of places where the team has to start to reconstruct. They have to do it quickly and the room for error is decreasing with every single day. With the situation in which they are in, Boca are now facing the possibility of having a greater climb into South American tournaments. This is a tough pill to swallow especially this tournament where they looked to at least be in position to make an important run internationally. What the team cannot afford now is to lose yet another year of no Copa Lib or Sudamericana play.




, |

World Cup Commercials

Call Simply Futbol

SF Partners

Audio Player

Newsodrome

Newsodrome - Niche News, Top Stories