A year ago, Passarella fled from behind fans throwing bottles of mineral water and lighters with a brightly colored umbrella; A year later, Simeone slammed his hand into his bench seat, bleeding from his hands...... The two River Plate managers are so depressed and out of shape, and it is conceivable what level the team they are in charge can achieve. The Estadio Monumental knocked Simeone in the door a year ago, hoping that the young coach who had made a name for himself in Estudiantes de La Plata would bring life and vitality to the poor and weak team, but they were soon disappointed to find that the team had sent away the plague god and invited the faint king - River Plate had only won two games in the spring league and finished second from the bottom with only two wins, and suffered a 12-game winless streak in the team's 107-year history. Why did the River Plate team, which used to compete with Boca Juniors, become a paper tiger that everyone deceived overnight?

Donkey Rebellion Monument Chicken Dog Restless

Diego Simeone, the favorite of the Passarella national team in the mid-90s, dreams of one day playing like his mentor and coaching. After retiring from the team and becoming a coach, Simeone moved to La Plata in May 2006 and led the young Estudiantes team to the spring league championship that year. In the face of the olive branch thrown by the River Plate team, he naturally took it without thinking, but Simeone seemed to have forgotten that the capital team was like a sea, and even famous giants such as Díaz and Gallego could not start and finish, not to mention him, a young man with only one year of coaching experience at the time.

The autumn league in the first half of this year was quite sweet for Simeone and River Plate's "newlyweds", and despite the team's exit in the Copa Libertadores, they still managed to reach the top of the league ahead of their old rival Boca. Unfortunately, his feud with the team's banner Ortega quickly dismantled the harmony in the dressing room. Although Simeone handed over the captain's armband to "Little Donkey" at the beginning of his tenure and claimed that the latter's position was unreplaceable, Ortega also ushered in another spring in his career with outstanding performances. However, Ortega's life has become more and more disorderly, and the $2 million annual salary offer from Qatari and Saudi Arabia has emboldened the veteran. The serious interview between the top brass of River Plate and Ortega, although it stopped the Jinyuan offensive in West Asia, failed to save the indulgence of the "little donkey". Soon after the start of the spring league, he was even more drunk and missed the team's training, and Simeone, who was about to completely change the team's blood, took this opportunity to exclude the "little donkey" from the team. The two went from being close friends to breaking up, and it was only seven months before and after. Ortega, who was loaned to the second division side Rivadavia by River Plate, not only did not repent, but also repeatedly used "Horn" and "OLE" as a position to vent his dissatisfaction with Simeone. Now that Simeone is out of the wilderness due to poor performance, Ortega is naturally the happiest, because he can finally end his exile and continue to return to the "monument" to be his savior and overlord.

From his first appearance for the team in 1991, he was hailed as Maradona's successor, and then left Valencia and Sampdoria, and staged a farce with Fenerbahce of Turkey, and broke ties with the West Asian team...... Ortega's career has been buzzing with all its twists and turns, and the first thought of refuge has always nurtured his riverbed. Although the veteran, who calls himself the "son of River Plate", has partnered with generations of players such as Francisco Ly, Da Alessandro and Higuain, and has experienced countless manager changes, his "June child's face" temper has always been a time bomb for the team, and the frequent comings and goings and relying on the old have made the young people in the team resentful. Riquelme's Boca played a triumphant two-front battle, Veron's Estudiantes remained among the strong teams, and Ortega did something at River Plate!

Rigid self-use Simeone's copy of Passarella

In the context of South American players frantically landing in Europe, is River Plate really broken? Not really. Although the team let go of the main goalkeeper Carrizo this summer, veterans such as Quiroga and Tucio can make up for the lack of personnel with experience, and the midfielder who lost Beluschi, who moved to Olympiacos at the beginning of this year, still has good players such as Poncio. As for the forward line, Rosales and Falcao continue to stay, and the team has loaned back (sold to Israeli Jerusalem Vital in July this year) Uruguayan center Abreu (in the Sino-Ukrainian warm-up match before the World Cup in South Korea and Japan, he defeated the national football team with two yuan and participated in the World Cup as the main player), even if it is not comparable to Boca, which has Riquelme and Palacio, the strength is definitely in the upper middle of the league. But football is not a card game, not to mention that Simeone keeps such a large number of good cards on the bench or even in the stands most of the time. Bonanot, a young striker who had a falling out with Passarella for his playing time last year, has become one of the team's senior starters after his rookie season, and it is not difficult to understand why River Plate, which has always been an attacking force, has only scored 16 goals in 15 league games, and the key games have never been decided.

Simeone's desire to complete the replacement of the team as soon as possible after winning the autumn league championship is understandable, but he just forgot that River Plate has always been a "dual-core" team composed of returnees and youth team elites, not to mention that Simeone himself has experienced returning from Serie A and knows the role of those experienced veterans who have seen the world. However, Simeone, who was known for his slickness as a player, apparently forgot to carry this advantage into his coaching career, and the hard-to-head encounter with Ortega was epitomized, and the relationship with other big names was extremely strained.

Boca coach Ischia gave Riquelme, who was playing on multiple fronts and was physically exhausted, to be relieved of training and not to participate in the defense, but under Simeone, the players did not perform well in one or two games, and what awaits them may be a long bench career, and Abreu, who started 15 times last season as the team's absolute main force, has not played a league game so far. In Simeone's team, only a few people such as Falcao, Villagra, Aoumada, Bonanot and Aveleras can guarantee the main position for a long time, not to mention that these "Adou" have not been convincing at all, and only defender Villagra has been selected for the Argentine national team of the old horse in River Plate, which has always been full of talent.

A year ago, River Plate lost to Arsenal Sarandi in the semi-finals of the Copa Libertadores, and the betrayal Passarella was disgraced; A year later, River Plate faced Guadalajara, Mexico in the second leg of the quarter-finals of the Copa Sudamericana, and was eliminated by the home team (3:4 on aggregate). Although Simeone swore that "Lazio extended invitations to me more than once. But with his rollercoaster performance in less than a year at River Plate, who would dare to give this reformer a chance to try his skills?

There is a lack of strategic continuity at the top level

River Plate has fallen to where it is today, but the club's top management lacks the determination to adapt. After receiving Simeone's resignation, President Aguilar actually said: "I was only ten minutes out of the hotel, and I was about to go home when I received news that Simeone had discussed this decision with the coaching staff. It's a pity. He's a championship coach with a lot of amazing ideas. It's sad news for us because we wanted him to stay at the club and it was a big surprise. Although Aguilar said that there are "25 candidates" when talking about the new manager, the right candidate may not be determined until next autumn league at the earliest. Predictably, with the league falling out and the South American Club Cup out, the empty riverbed for half a year can only endure the ridicule of several major opponents to survive the vacuum.

Looking back at River Plate's performance since the beginning of the new century, they have more than once had a luxurious main line-up, but the performance of the continental competition is not as good as Boca, and they are often bullied by San Lorenzo and Independiente back home, which is enough to prove the hypochondria of this old powerhouse. In the operation of the ball market, River Plate's thinking is also dull and exhausted, and the forced exchange of blood regardless of the record often leads to the collapse of the record and the departure of the coach, which is actually a tragedy that River Plate has not been able to get rid of. The departure of a manager often means the departure of a group of players, but no one can foresee the whereabouts of this group of players now.

Personnel changes are frequent, but the innate arrogance of River Plate has never subsided. The fact that they are winless in 12 games is a microcosm of River Plate's season: they are young and unable to hold on to their lead until the end, let alone come from behind. River Plate's leaders have always been talents such as Aimar, Dalessandro and Bonanot, not Delgado or Tevez-style fighters, and in the dark, River Plate has been doomed to perform below expectations for several seasons. The fall behind in the spring league does not mean that River Plate will fall into the second division abyss next summer, after all, they have the autumn league championship results to "neutralize" the absurd trend of the second half of the year, but a River Plate that is sliding towards the second rate is a fact that "Monument" fans do not want to witness and admit.