Florida Cup: River couldn’t make it to the final on the penalties Marcelo Gallardo’s team matched Sao Paulo without goals, but was defeated on the penalties by 8-7.

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River Plate could not make it to the Florida Cup final and now it has to play against Vasco da Gama this Saturday for the third place. After defeating Millonarios from Colombia, this Thursday evening the second semifinal game took place against Sao Paulo.

The first half started not so good for El Millonario. Two minutes after the game had started, Sao Paulo had the chance for an advantage thanks to a penalty, but Enrique Bologna had an impeccable reaction and flew to his right to stop Cueva’s shot. River answered with a header by Iván Alonso that Denis, the goalkeeper, stopped easily.

After that, the Brazilian team had clearer chances, but Bologna was always there to stop them from scoring. First, Araújo defined very poorly in front of the goal. Then, River’s goalkeeper had a series of interventions: he stopped a head shot by Andrés Chávez and two consecutive kicks by Banfield’s former player. Gallardo’s team, on the other hand, had a good opportunity with kicks from outside by Denis Rodríguez and other by Tomás Andrade.

The second half had fewer risky situations and a great amount of substitutions on both teams. On one side, River had a chance with Lucas Alario’s feet, who couldn’t manageto kick in the area, a shot by Rodrigo Mora after a play by Sebastián Driussi, an attempt by Matías Moya that Sao Paulo’s goalkeeper stopped and the most clear one: at the end, a left kick by Gonzalo Martínez that hit with strength on the crossbar. On the other side, the rival team had a deviated header by Schmidt and a great performance by Bologna stopping a shot by Shaylon.

For the penalty shootout, the players who shot for River were Fernández, Mora, Driussi, Mina, Arzura, Montiel and Mayada, while goalkeeper Sidão stopped the shots kicked by Martínez and Moya. For Sao Paulo, Schmidt, Shaylon, Gilberto, Tavares, Araruna, Lugano and Lucão scored, while Wesley shot outside.

SUMMARY

RIVER PLATE: Enrique Bologna; Gonzalo Montiel, Arturo Mina, Iván Rossi; Camilo Mayada, Nicolás Domingo, Denis Rodríguez, Facundo Medina; Tomás Andrade; Rodrigo Mora and Iván Alonso (C). COACH: Marcelo Gallardo.
Substitutes: Augusto Batalla, Jorge Moreira, Lucas Martínez Quarta, Luis Olivera, Leonardo Ponzio, Joaquín Arzura, Ignacio Fernández, Gonzalo Martínez, Matías Moya, Sebastián Driussi and Lucas Alario.
Substitutions: Alario, Arzura, Driussi, Martínez, Moya, Fernández.

SAO PAULO: Denis, Bruno, Caio, Chávez, Cueva, Buffarini, Mendes, Nem, Maicon (C), Araújo and Breno. COACH: RogérioCeni.
Substitutes: Sidão, Lucão, Lugano, Wellington, Neílton, Cícero, Wesley, Foguete, Schmidt, Tavares, Gilberto, Couto, Douglas, Araruna, Shaylon.
Substitutions: Sidão, Lugano, Lucão, Junior Tavares, Wellington, Wesley, Schmidt, Cícero, Neílton, Gilberto, Foguete, Araruna, Shaylon.

Booked: Alario, Rossi, Arzura (RP).
Referee: Andrew Musashe.
Assistant Referees: Kersten Schroeder and Natalie Simon.
Fourth Official: Daniel Gutierrez.
Stadium: Al Lang Stadium.

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