River will try to extend their winning streak to 4 games in the south of Buenos Aires. Kick off from the Estadio Centenario in Quilmes is at 4:15pm EST.
Matias Almeyda is expected to send out the same starting 11 for the fourth game in a row: Leandro Chichizola; Luciano Abecasis, Agustín Alayes, Jonatan Maidana, Juan Manuel Díaz; Carlos Sánchez, Nico Domingo, Martín Aguirre, Lucas Ocampos; Alejandro Domínguez and Fernando Cavenaghi.
The entire first team is at Almeyda’s disposal for Saturday’s game except Cesar Gonzalez who played yesterday in India for his national team Venezuela in their 1-0 loss to Argentina.
River Plate has played Quilmes 59 times, winning 36, drawing 14 and losing only 9 times. Furthermore, River has won 5 of the last 7. Their most recent meeting was in last season’s Clausura, at Quilmes, with River coming out victorious on a lone Paulo Ferrari goal.
Alejandro Dominguez will get extra attention from the Quilmes fans Saturday. El Chori started his career at Quilmes, but since leaving has had an antagonistic relationship with the Cervecero faithful. His biggest offense? Celebrating a goal he scored against Quilmes while playing for River Plate back in 2000.
Quilmes had the chance to save themselves – and River – on the final game of the Clausura last season, but got relegated when they lost to Olimpo. Now in the B Nacional, River is top of the table and Quilmes enter the game in 5th place having won 2 and lost 1.
Quilmes Atletico Club is located in the city of Quilmes which is in the south of greater Buenos Aires. The city is probably more famous to outsiders for the locally brewed beer also called Quilmes. Hence the club’s nickname of “Cervezeros” which translates to The Brewers. Quilmes is either the oldest club in Argentina or one of the oldest, depending on your source, and have won the Argentine first division title once (1978). Their stadium, the Estadio Centenario, holds 30,000 spectators.
Just over 4000 River fans will be in attendance to support El Millo. The internet only sale of tickets was marked by the usual problems and accusations as the website was unable to handle the onslaught of traffic. Some fans claimed they were able to secure tickets before the site went live, arousing the usual suspicions that the system was flawed from the beginning. It is estimated that around 600 tickets were sold before they were officially supposed to be available online. Clearly, while demand to see River only seems to grow, a reasonable solution to the logistics of selling tickets is not in sight.
