ARGENTINA: The new head coach of River Plate, Matias Almeyda, says he is happy to be coaching the team he previously played for adding there is a long road to come back from its historic relegation

Record ID: 253894

  • Title: ARGENTINA: The new head coach of River Plate, Matias Almeyda, says he is happy to be coaching the team he previously played for adding there is a long road to come back from its historic relegation
  • Date: 12th July 2011
  • Summary: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (FILE) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF THE RIVER PLATE STADIUM VARIOUS OF RIVER FANS WALKING TO THE STADIUM
  • Embargoed: 27th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina, Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVAM1G2MQUWNNQJE0Z8Z2D6NFLY
  • Story Text: New River Plate head coach Matias Almeyda said Monday (July 11) he looks forward to coaching the team in the Nacional B next season and is ready to leave his playing days behind and work to bring River back from its historic relegation.
    The record 33 time Argentine league champions went down for the first time in their 110-year existence last month when they lost a relegation-promotion playoff against Nacional B side Belgrano 3-1 on aggregate.
    Almeyda, a midfielder who played for Parma and Lazio in Italy and Argentina at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, was a part of the relegated team this season but missed the decisive second leg, a 1-1 draw at River's Monumental Stadium, through suspension.
    At his first news conference as the team's coach, the 37-year-old said he looks forward to his new role at the club, one of Argentina's biggest and most popular, and is ready to leave his playing days behind him.
    "I am happy to be the coach of River. I think as a player I was suffering. I played my last games with a fracture in a rib and a pulled abductor and once you start to have these kinds of problems I think that's it. As a player I think I'd given my all. I couldn't give anymore and today what I want has left the player [in me] behind," Almeyda said.
    Almeyda has no coaching experience having come out of semi-retirement playing for Lyn in Norway and then Fenix in the fourth tier of the Argentine game to return to River, his first club, in 2009.
    The rookie coach along with club president Daniel Passarella are charged with leading River into unknown territory in the tough second tier of Argentine football.
    River did not have a bad season but paid the price for a poor points average over three seasons -- the system by which relegation is determined in Argentina.
    The system was, ironically, created in the early 1980s to protect the big clubs from a poor campaign.
    "Well, you have to accept what it is and play. What we have now is a long campaign and we have to do things correctly to get back in the 'A'," Almeyda said.
    Hooligan fans known as barrabravas caused mayhem inside and outside the giant Monumental stadium after last month's match which sent them to "the 'B'", wrecking everything they could lay their hands on and leaving a trail of injured supporters and police officers.
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