It was time for a brief break for the First National. After half of the championship has been played, a short break is coming, while each club makes its own assessment and looks for reinforcements for the remainder of the season.
On the side of the Cordobans, the sensations are different: conformity in a Estudiantes de Río Cuarto, which started badly and ended very well. And concern in a Racing team that had a hard time finding consistency throughout the year.
The 30 points that “el León” collected in these 19 dates took him to sixth place in the table in Zone B. In other words, today he would be entering the Reduced to fight for the second promotion.
He is still a little far from the leader Colón, who has 38 units, although the dream of fighting there is still latent if he manages to string some wins in a row when the tournament resumes.
But in general terms, there is a climate in Estudiantes that combines tranquility with optimism.
Of course, 2024 had not started well at all for Estudiantes de Río Cuarto: after the sad death of Gustavo Raggio and the short cycle of Fernando Stagnari, the leadership went out to look for a coach who would remove the “León” from the lower zone of the board.
And the bet surprised several: they hired Alexis Matteo, a young coach who has been working in different promotion clubs and had been followed for a long time by the Rio Cuarto club.
Matteo left Ferro de General Pico, in La Pampa, since he received the proposal from León, which represented a big leap in his career.
And the good results did not take long to arrive: the coach opted for a base of players who had been there since last year and mixed them with some of the 20 reinforcements who arrived for this season.
He decided not to use defenders as full-backs and the move went well: Valentin Fenoglio and Luis Abraham consolidated their positions and today are key pieces of the new Estudiantes.
Furthermore, the coach “found” the midfield with Nahuel Cainelli and Francisco Romero as pillars of a team that recovered the football it did not have at the beginning of the year.
From a tactical point of view, Matteo played in a 4-1-4-1 with Fran Galván as “9”, another of his successes. The forward who returned from San Lorenzo responded with goals and good performances.
Now the challenge remains of being able to stay in the Reduced zone from now on to the end of the tournament. For now, the leadership is looking for reinforcements and in that sense they have already signed defender Agustín Solveyra.
Racing, a song to irregularity
The first half of the season left little pleasure in Racing. The Academy added 23 points in 19 games and at the moment is not achieving its objective of getting into the Reduced zone to fight for the second promotion.
The poor start to the season cost coach Diego Pozo his job, and the leadership had to move quickly to find his successor.
With the arrival of Juan Carlos Olave, the team quickly achieved results and also obtained the long-awaited defensive solvency.
But the “summer” did not last long and then Racing continued to fall prey to its irregularity.
He did enough to be able to get a few more points than he has, but for one reason or another he ended up leaving them on the way.
Thinking about the future, the leadership led by Manuel Pérez has already obtained its first reinforcement: it is forward Lautaro Cerato (23 years old), who arrives from Sarmiento de Junín.
Liniers de Bahía Blanca is the owner of its pass and gives it on loan for 18 months with a 50% purchase option.
While Diego Barrera, Talleres forward, was close to joining. Finally the operation fell through at the last minute and that fact generated a short circuit between the leadership of both clubs.
But beyond the names that arrive for the remainder, in Racing everyone dreams of scoring a good sprint final that puts them in the heads-up for a place in First Division. By being in that fight the objective will be achieved.
