Was this River Plate vs Boca Juniors game the most unfriendly friendly ever? (Includes video)

Published 11:42 28/01/12

For the new season, MirrorFootball is teaming up with some of the blogosphere's best new writers to bring you even more great football reads every single day.

Saturday is South America day, and here's Valderramarama 's Ed Malyon with his take on the week's big issues in Argentina.

***

Given the hatred between Argentina’s two biggest clubs, it seems bizarre that River Plate and Boca Juniors would choose to take part in two ‘friendly’ matches every January.

That they do though, and this year’s first clash between the sides was an unprecedented renewal of the ‘Superclasico’, with River’s relegation having left the 2011-12 season with no competitive editions of one of the world’s biggest rivalries.

Well, not competitive in one sense, at least.

Given the two red cards in Wednesday night’s fixture, you’d have been forgiven for thinking that it was a league game with championship glory riding on it.

As it was, Boca won only bragging rights as they emerged 2-0 victors, assisted by the dismissal of River Plate’s Alejandro Dominguez after only 25 minutes.

Having been fairly booked for a late tackle on Pablo Ledesma, Dominguez (or ‘Chori’ as he is better known) lost his head; pushing the referee, liberally dousing him with insults and then capping it off with some abusive gestures towards the Boca Juniors fans having received his second yellow (watch the video below).

The former Valencia forward now faces a long ban for his actions, which will rule him out of Sunday’s repeat fixture in Mendoza. Some 24 hours by road from Buenos Aires, it may not seem obvious why two sides from the capital would play there but it makes more sense from a football perspective than the venue of Wednesday’s game, Chaco.

In Argentina’s dry Northern province of the same name, Chaco became the 34th different city to host a ‘Superclasico’. The fixture itself only exists in friendly form for financial reasons, and the decision to take it around the country is a self-serving political choice from the Argentine FA that would be the equivalent of asking Manchester United to play against their sky blue rivals in Cornwall.

The game was perhaps unsurprising in its result given the divisional difference between the two, with Boca fresh from winning the Apertura championship in December. Their fifth-choice centre forward Nicolas Blandi struck both goals, proving that they have plenty of strength in depth for battling in both domestic and continental competitions for the next few months (watch highlights in the second video below).

For River, they will continue trying to restore themselves to the elite of Argentine football at the first attempt, knowing that anything except winning the second tier at a canter will be a further embarrassment to their already battered reputation.

***

Follow Ed Malyon on Twitter @eaamalyon and at Valderramarama.com

Dominguez red card