After three postponed matches and a rescheduled second leg 10,000 kilometres from the original venue, after a match which also needed extra time, South America finally has a winner.
River Plate will represent the continent at the 2018 Fifa Club World Cup which begins in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. Guillermo Barros’s men overcame their greatest rivals in the biggest game in Argentinian club football history last night at Real Madrid’s Bernabéu.
It was the 26th time that Argentina’s two biggest clubs had met in the Libertadores tournament, but this was their first encounter in the final. Boca has the edge historically and took the lead after 44 minutes, but River replied with three goals in a dramatic end to this most tense and theatrical of finals.
As Boca – down to 10 men and with a player clearly injured – pushed for a late equaliser, River’s Gonzalo Martinez broke away in the 121st minute. Boca’s exhausted players had no chance of catching River’s number 10.
They had thrown everything forward and hit the post seconds earlier, with goalkeeper Esteban Andrada playing outfield for the final eight minutes, yet every single blue and yellow shirt chased the ball back.
They could only watch the inevitable desperately as Martinez put the ball into an empty net to make it 3-1 on the night and 5-3 on aggregate. Football can be so cruel.
Football’s finest stadium isn’t normally known for its atmosphere. Madrid fans are spoiled and sated and will watch their side in the World Club Cup for the fourth time in five years (and they won all four), but the Bernabéu came alive to the throbbing beat of Argentinian terrace songs which will catch on around the stadiums of world football.
Those fans, who’d been largely peaceful in the Spanish capital under a heavy 4,000-strong security operation, witnessed an aggressive, mistake-strewn match short on quality and with an excess of mis-timed tackles. Eight yellow cards and one red were flourished.
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Read more:
Messi, Rodriguez and Griezmann: Football's top stars turn out in Madrid for River Plate v Boca Juniors
Fifa Club World Cup: Barcelona and Real Madrid feature in five best matches from past UAE tournaments
Mario Barcia: Team Wellington midfielder prepares for Club World Cup 'dream' after unconventional journey
Lowdown: All you need to know about the Fifa Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi
WATCH: Young journalists interview Al Ain stars ahead of Fifa Club World Cup
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It’s part of the appeal which makes Argentinian football so enthralling and while playing the game outside Argentina won little support from Argentinians, it gave an opportunity for around 60,000 Argentinians who live in Spain to see the game.
They were proper football fans rather than monied football tourists and there were a few thousand fans from each club who travelled across the Atlantic. However, the precedent should not be copied. Madrid was the venue because of exceptional circumstances in Argentina which has serious issues around its football.
It should not be a marker for football’s flagship continental matches to be given to the highest bidder away from the fans who make the tournaments so special.
This season’s Libertadores was special, with Brazil v Argentina semi-finals. Forty-seven teams from ten South American countries entered the competition.
The previous format would not have allowed for two teams from the same country to meet in the final, but River and Boca overcame the best teams from Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru and Argentina to get there.
After the first leg was drawn 2-2 at Boca and the second was shifted to Spain, Dario Benedetto put Boca ahead, coolly finishing in front of six tiers of his own fans. He’d been put one on one with goalkeeper Franco Armani after a pass from the halfway line from excellent Nahitan Nandez.
Benedetto celebrated by pulling his tongue out and bulging his eyes at River defender Exequiel Palacios.
The organisers had tried to keep the Argentinian theme, with the kick off displayed in Argentinian time rather than Spanish and the country’s national anthem played before the game – plus a dozen ear-splitting pop songs.
By the time River equalised through Lucas Pratto – a former Boca youth player – after 68 minutes, River had asserted their superiority, but it took until the 102nd minute for Juan Quintero to put his team ahead when he lashed the ball past Esteban Andrada from the edge of the 18-yard box.
River had a two-man advantage since the successive fouls of Boca’s Wilmar Barrios earned him a second yellow in five minutes and dismissal to the stands after 92 minutes. Martinez’s goal, the eighth of the final, came seconds before the final whistle of extra time. River’s staff invaded the Bernabéu pitch, with a map of South America cut into the centre circle.
Madrid and Spain will be pleased at how they staged the game, which attracted 72,281 fans to the 81,000 capacity stadium. Argentina and Uruguay hope to stage the 2030 World Cup finals – as does Spain in another joint bid with Portugal.
That Conmebol, South America’s governing association, doesn’t think Argentina was capable of staging their biggest domestic game in their own country is hardly a great recommendation.
Not that such politicking mattered to the fans of Argentina’s two biggest clubs as they flooded out of the Bernabéu, Boca’s distraught not just because they’d lost in the final of the biggest club match in South America, but because it was against their rivals River.
Although there could be an unlikely sting in the tail. Boca still have an appeal pending to throw River out of the competition.
The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump and Other Pieces 1986-2016
Martin Amis,
Jonathan Cape
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Captain Marvel
Director: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Starring: Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn
4/5 stars
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Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
Confirmed%20bouts%20(more%20to%20be%20added)
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UAE SQUAD
Ahmed Raza (Captain), Rohan Mustafa, Jonathan Figy, CP Rizwan, Junaid Siddique, Mohammad Usman, Basil Hameed, Zawar Farid, Vriitya Aravind (WK), Waheed Ahmed, Karthik Meiyappan, Zahoor Khan, Darius D'Silva, Chirag Suri
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
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Notable salonnières of the Middle East through history
Al Khasan (Okaz, Saudi Arabia)
Tamadir bint Amr Al Harith, known simply as Al Khasan, was a poet from Najd famed for elegies, earning great renown for the eulogy of her brothers Mu’awiyah and Sakhr, both killed in tribal wars. Although not a salonnière, this prestigious 7th century poet fostered a culture of literary criticism and could be found standing in the souq of Okaz and reciting her poetry, publicly pronouncing her views and inviting others to join in the debate on scholarship. She later converted to Islam.
Maryana Marrash (Aleppo)
A poet and writer, Marrash helped revive the tradition of the salon and was an active part of the Nadha movement, or Arab Renaissance. Born to an established family in Aleppo in Ottoman Syria in 1848, Marrash was educated at missionary schools in Aleppo and Beirut at a time when many women did not receive an education. After touring Europe, she began to host salons where writers played chess and cards, competed in the art of poetry, and discussed literature and politics. An accomplished singer and canon player, music and dancing were a part of these evenings.
Princess Nazil Fadil (Cairo)
Princess Nazil Fadil gathered religious, literary and political elite together at her Cairo palace, although she stopped short of inviting women. The princess, a niece of Khedive Ismail, believed that Egypt’s situation could only be solved through education and she donated her own property to help fund the first modern Egyptian University in Cairo.
Mayy Ziyadah (Cairo)
Ziyadah was the first to entertain both men and women at her Cairo salon, founded in 1913. The writer, poet, public speaker and critic, her writing explored language, religious identity, language, nationalism and hierarchy. Born in Nazareth, Palestine, to a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother, her salon was open to different social classes and earned comparisons with souq of where Al Khansa herself once recited.
Company%20Profile
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Essentials
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct from the UAE to Geneva from Dh2,845 return, including taxes. The flight takes 6 hours.
The package
Clinique La Prairie offers a variety of programmes. A six-night Master Detox costs from 14,900 Swiss francs (Dh57,655), including all food, accommodation and a set schedule of medical consultations and spa treatments.
PAKISTAN SQUAD
Pakistan - Sarfraz Ahmed (captain), Azhar Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Hafeez, Haris Sohail, Faheem Ashraf, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Amir, Hasan Ali, Aamer Yamin, Rumman Raees.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League quarter-final, second leg (first-leg score)
Porto (0) v Liverpool (2), Wednesday, 11pm UAE
Match is on BeIN Sports
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Zidane's managerial achievements
La Liga: 2016/17
Spanish Super Cup: 2017
Uefa Champions League: 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18
Uefa Super Cup: 2016, 2017
Fifa Club World Cup: 2016, 2017