Riquelme and Boca Juniors keep everybody guessing

Local Final Championship starts today

soccer — final tournament

The Final championship of the local 2012/13 season begins today with the return of some old faces from Europe, but the main talking point was whether Juan Román Riquelme would return to Boca Juniors.

Juan Román Riquelme continued to keep everyone guessing yesterday about whether he would play again ahead of the final stage of the Argentine championship, starting today.

Having walked out on Boca Juniors in July and turned down an offer to rejoin the club last month, despite the return of record title-winning coach Carlos Bianchi, Riquelme has hinted he might want to wear their colours again after all.

The club expected to announce today if the former Argentina midfielder is returning back but some board members seem unconvinced it is a good idea.

Riquelme could be accused of breaking his word. He missed out on the 2010 World Cup because the previous year he said he would never play for Argentina under then-coach Diego Maradona and stuck to his word.

Boca will parade new marquee signing, Argentina forward Juan Manuel Martínez, when they host Quilmes at home tomorrow.

Arch-rivals River Plate, who have talented teenager Juan Iturbe on loan for six months from Porto, travel to Córdoba on Sunday to face Belgrano, the side that relegated them in 2011.

Vélez Sarsfield, who won the Initial tournament in the first half of the season, open their title defence at Argentinos Juniors at the Diego Armando Maradona stadium this evening. The champions may give a debut to Argentina midfielder Fernando Gago, snatched on loan from Valencia under the noses of his first club Boca.

There are mixed prospects for the other big teams, arch-rivals Racing Club and relegation-haunted Independiente from the Buenos Aires suburb of Avellaneda and Juan Antonio Pizzi’s San Lorenzo.

Racing, who had a good run-in to the Initial championship with a talented young attack, have gone for experience in the transfer market by taking Argentina midfielder Mario Bolatti on loan from Internacional of Brazil, but they also sold two talented first teamers, Gabriel Hauche and Ricardo Centurión (who is, however, still here).

Independiente are struggling in the bottom three of the relegation standings, a separate table calculated on average points over three seasons, and will need a good run in the final championship to avoid the drop for the first time.

They have brought back former Argentina midfielder Daniel “Rolfi” Montenegro from Mexico’s América and signed Colombian forward Juan Caicedo.

San Lorenzo made up for their failure to bring Newcastle United captain Fabricio Coloccini back home by bringing in former Nantes and Toulouse centre back Mauro Cetto from Palermo.

Action starts this evening with two matches: Unión (Santa Fe) v Arsenal at 7.10pm and Argentinos Juniors v Vélez Sarsfield at 9.15pm.

Reuters