Ahead of Boca-River tonight, a LONG READ thread on River Plate's 2010/11 season: How did a massive club and institution like Club Atlético River Plate get relegated from Argentina's top tier in June 2011?
🇦🇷 #longread (3,000 words)
P19: W2/D8/L9. Cholo Simeone resigns after 1 win in first 14 games
The league format was changed in 1982 so that relegation is calculated over 3 FULL SEASONS (6x 19-game campaigns).
Example from 2019/20 Premier League season: Bournemouth got 34 points from 38 games. Over 3 seasons their promedio would be: 102 pts / 114 games = 0.895
In the 2008/09 relegation table River lay in 6th.
River Plate got AR$33k/year instead of potentially 30x AR$30k!
Worse was that 0% of the income from advertisements shown on the screen went to the Club Atlético River Plate.
River Plate got 0% of that player's transfer fee.
Even sports broadcaster TyC owned 40% of River's Patricio Toranzo. How does that affect their coverage and analysis of the player and his team?
(FC Locarno were owned by HAZ Football Worldwide Ltd.)
River Plate ended up getting US$10.4m for Higuaín: US$6m initially plus a % of the transfer to Real Madrid. FC Locarno/HAZ made US$10.5m from the transfers.
Locarno are now in Switzerland's 6th tier.
“US$50k, please.”
BARRA BRAVAS are not fans as such. They're not hooligans or ultras, either. They are mafia leveraging power at all Argentinian football clubs. Songs and atmosphere, yes, but also drugs, weapons, violence and death.
HINCHAR (verb) = to inflate
— Tears at La Bombonera \U0001f49a (@BomboneraTears) December 8, 2020
HINCHA (noun) = supporter https://t.co/AwlUF9fnRS
There is a lot of money in football: a lot of it is more accessible in Argentina (+ other cripplingly corrupt countries).
But River Plate went much further by giving jobs to the most senior of Los Borrachos del Tablón.
11/02/2007: Batalla de los Quinchos https://t.co/M55vwmHPsN
06/05/07: Batalla del Playón (pics below)
23/03/08: Batalla del Fortín (Vélez Sarsfield's stadium)
https://t.co/Nvlo1zyfDa
El Kaiser's kids grew up as fanáticos de River.
Apertura 2009/10: 14th place (P19 W5/D6/L8).
Clausura ‘09/10: 13th place (W6/D4/L9).
2009/10 Apertura+Clausura: 15th place.
River Plate finished the season with a 5-1 home loss to Tigre (5-0 at half-time). https://t.co/Wh5ZrSPU7v @Transfermarkt
And the Argentinian legend of “el fantasma de la B” started to worry River fans: the so-called Ghost of the B’s presence was growing. 👻
El Pelado (the bald one) Almeyda had only played 54 minutes of football in 4 years. For Henning Berg’s @Lyn1896FK in Oslo 🇳🇴 in 2007.
More talented, more dangerous in front of goal, more spectacular. Greater winners, more elegant. More charismatic. More intelligent. All of them have made me happier but I haven’t loved anyone of them more than Matías Almeyda."
17 y/o Manuel Lanzini
19 y/o Roberto Pereyra
18 y/o Erik Lamela.
Have you seen this @TransWorldSport video of a 12-year Lamela? https://t.co/fDiD27d5eO The next Maradona! River Plate turned down Lionel Messi but considered Lamela an equal alternative.
Cappa replaced by JJ López after matchday 13, a 1-0 loss at Club Atlético All Boys.
1st Nov. 1981 River Plate drew 2-2 with Boca Juniors. After 6 mins JJ López’s scored from 45 yards.
https://t.co/7VpIPrrFv3
Diego Maradona scored twice that day ⚽️⚽️
But they won the superclásico of Nov. 2010 1-0 with a goal from another former Boca player Jonatan Maidana.
In April 2011 they scored this goal at Quilmes after 25 passes and 62 seconds of possession https://t.co/UHnhzQ881m
However, in the last 5 weeks of the season River won 0 of their last 7 games: W0/D6/L3. A 2-0 loss at La Bombonera was particularly hard to swallow.
Next game: Banfield (A). Home fans threw a live chicken onto the pitch, a diagonal red stripe across its chest. The nickname stuck.
Lanús win 2-1 in El Monumental. It’s all too much to take for some: in the stands a 72-year old River Plate fan dies of a heart attack.
2008/09: 15th/20
2009/10: 15th/20
2010/11: 6th/20!
But over 114 games, River finished 17th out of 20 in the “relegation table”. The system devised to save them in 1982 condemned them to a playoff game.
Passarella pushed JJ López aside taking control of the team. Buonanotte sold to Málaga and doesn’t want to risk getting injured so he sits out.
https://t.co/KBkd72CAcP
“MATAR O MORIR”: KILL OR DIE is the message from the fans.
https://t.co/Y7sFM0CWDG
TRANSCRIPT translated by yours truly (with a little help from @robertocoll88)
Outside El Monumental the atmosphere is even more tense. 60 shops and hundreds of cars are destroyed.
River Plate’s Hiroshima.
2011/12: River Plate won the Primera Nacional B 🏆
P38: W20/D13/L5. Promotion! 1st place only 1 point ahead of 2nd-placed Quilmes (and only 3 points from 3rd place and another promotion/relegation play-off to go up).
Inicial (formerly Apertura) 2012/13: 17th place (P19: W5/D6/L8)
Final (formerly Clausura): 1st place! 🏆 P19: W11/D4/L4 - 5 points ahead of Boca Juniors in 2nd.
🏆🏆2x Copa Libertadores (2015, 2018)
🏆1x Copa Sudamericana (2014)
🏆🏆🏆3x Copa Argentina (‘16, ‘17, ‘19)
Plus a handful of other titles, their gravitas can be discussed…
All credit to @ErikNiva and @AndreassonHakan of When We Were Kings podcast. Listen to the episode if only to hear Swedish which I think is a beautiful language https://t.co/Sja6JdCkXB
More from Sport
Aight. Here’s my favorite 2 stories about Bill Russell.
Both stories reveal how much of a humble human being he is. And one blows my mind because it dismantles what we think about the evolution of sports.
A thread:
The first is, that there is an assumption that today’s athletes are faster, stronger, etc. which is is based on ZERO evidence.
For instance, Wilt Chamberlain benched 465 lbs at 59 years old. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he benched 500 lbs on the set of Conan the Destroyer
Most basketball experts say Wilt has the highest vertical leap in NBA history. A few others argue that Michael Jordan did.
I think they’re both wrong.
Why?
Well let me tell you a story:
In 1956 Bill Russell was selected for the US Olympic basketball team
During this time, pros weren’t allowed in the Olympics, so the International Olympic Committee tried to say that he was ineligible since he had already signed with the Celtics, even though he hadn’t played yet
Luckily, Russell prevailed and led the team to the gold medal as the captain.
But if they would have stopped Russell from playing for the US basketball team, he would have STILL been in the Olympics.
How?
Because Bill Russell was one of the greatest high jumpers I. The world.
Both stories reveal how much of a humble human being he is. And one blows my mind because it dismantles what we think about the evolution of sports.
A thread:
Where is the thread? Love when you give us your take on these players. The KC Jones piece was outstanding. Had no idea.
— Bweasey (@Bweasey) December 27, 2020
The first is, that there is an assumption that today’s athletes are faster, stronger, etc. which is is based on ZERO evidence.
For instance, Wilt Chamberlain benched 465 lbs at 59 years old. Arnold Schwarzenegger says he benched 500 lbs on the set of Conan the Destroyer
Most basketball experts say Wilt has the highest vertical leap in NBA history. A few others argue that Michael Jordan did.
I think they’re both wrong.
Why?
Well let me tell you a story:
In 1956 Bill Russell was selected for the US Olympic basketball team
During this time, pros weren’t allowed in the Olympics, so the International Olympic Committee tried to say that he was ineligible since he had already signed with the Celtics, even though he hadn’t played yet
Luckily, Russell prevailed and led the team to the gold medal as the captain.
But if they would have stopped Russell from playing for the US basketball team, he would have STILL been in the Olympics.
How?
Because Bill Russell was one of the greatest high jumpers I. The world.
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Krugman is, of course, right about this. BUT, note that universities can do a lot to revitalize declining and rural regions.
See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:
And see this thing that I wrote:
And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote:
And see this other thing that I wrote:
One thing I've been noticing about responses to today's column is that many people still don't get how strong the forces behind regional divergence are, and how hard to reverse 1/ https://t.co/Ft2aH1NcQt
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 20, 2018
See this thing that @lymanstoneky wrote:
And see this thing that I wrote:
And see this book that @JamesFallows wrote:
And see this other thing that I wrote: