DAY OF SHAME
Boca v River called off again after bus attack injures players
IT is called Superclasico and billed as the most fearsome football rivalry in the world.
But the bile and the hate spilled over so badly on Saturday night that the Copa Libertadores – South America’s Champions League final – between River Plate and Boca Juniors was called off.
And little wonder with one visiting Boca player in hospital having glass picked out of his left eye, six more vomiting in the dressing room after being tear gassed and yet more of the squad suffering cuts to their faces, arms, legs and chests.
The attack by River fans on the Boca team bus – including former Manchester United and City star Carlos Tevez – was shocking even by the annual venom-filled atmosphere of this meeting of two clubs who have spent 113 years at each other’s throats.
And it wrecked a chance for Argentine football to repair its worldwide reputation as the two Buenos Aires sides met in the showpiece game for the first time – under a prediction of the greatest final in the competition’s 58-year history.
The game was due to start at 8pm on Saturday UK time, but was pushed back to 9pm and then 10.15pm before being postponed for 24 hours, and then called off indefinitely last night, leaving Tevez (right) fuming.
The striker, 34, said: “We’re in no condition to play. They are forcing us to play the game.
“Pablo Perez has just returned from hospital and has a bandage on his eye.
“Other team-mates have cuts. We’ve only just been able to breathe well because we were affected by the gas.
“We can’t play like this.”
By late yesterday afternoon, the idea of playing the second leg last night was thrown out, leaving the game tied at 2-2 after the first leg, and nobody knowing what happens next. Former Argentina frontman Gabriel Batistuta, second on the country’s all-time goals list behind Lionel Messi, called shame on the fans. He tweeted: “Another opportunity lost in front of the whole world that observes us, shameful, lamentable.” His sentiment was echoed by the presidents of both clubs, who were left shellshocked by the scenes at River’s Monumental Stadium. Boca president Daniel Angelici said: “This should shame us as a society and I find it very sad that we have to reschedule such an important match.
“It’s not easy to take this decision when there are 60,000 people in the stadium and the TV rights have been sold to a ton of countries.
“But the most important thing is to look after the physical and psychological condition of the team.”
His opposite number at River, Rodolfo D’Onofrio, added: “As an Argentine and as a football leader, I find this shameful.”
Saturday’s trouble came three years after a Libertadores last-16 tie between the same teams was abandoned at half-time after Boca fans attacked River players with pepper spray in the tunnel.
River were given a bye into the quarter-finals and Boca were kicked out of the competition. This episode is sure to become even more notorious.