Boca is that place where in three years, everything remains the same and in one month, everything changed. The needs and desires remain identical to the last time they played the Copa Libertadores, the final against Fluminense in 2023. Even in this period they did not win, not only internationally, but also locally in this football that gives away stars wholesale. But Today it is not as it seemed it would be. The fluctuation of football and the hierarchy of its players meant that, Where there was uncertainty, now there is hope.
A result can be coincidental, a long streak has its causes. Boca has not lost in ten games. Three of the first four were ties that paid for that lack of expectations; the remainder, a logical victory over Gimnasia de Chivilcoy in the Argentine Cup. The fifth was Lanús, which as a morbid fact presented the letter of having been a team that had ejected rival technicians: Renato Gaucho, from Fluminense; Gustavo Álvarez, from the University of Chile; Jorge Sampaoli, from Atletico Mineiro, and Filipe Luís, from Flamengo. On March 4, Boca beat him 3-0 and that preview was the last time that Claudio Ubeda’s continuity was doubted.
It was said in this column previously: Juan Román Riquelme is not moved by other people’s anxieties. Manage times your way. Sometimes it is difficult to understand why some negotiations for reinforcements or contract renewals take so long. Another leader would have decided to dispense with the coach as soon as he felt questioned. No one can say for sure how Boca would play today with another coach, but the truth is that Ubeda found a team that clearly works and knows how to occupy its space. It is not a double command, precisely what exists is a superior in each sector: one for the blackboard, another for the locker room; both, for the style of play.
A footballer like Leandro Paredes In a league where the excellent ones left, the good ones began to leave and now the acceptable ones also leave provides a huge advantage. He is on track to be more decisive than any player who has passed through Boca since Riquelme in 2007, even above Carlos Tevez who returned fully from Juventus.
His leadership is absolute. It contrasted from the start with that of the Uruguayan Edinson Cavanimore locked in his professionalism and without the intention of forming groups. In football, furthermore, leading without playing becomes complicated. And injuries took Cavani off the pitch too much. The last thing he was seen was a post in which he was doing kinesiology exercises; with one detail: he uploaded it to his networks while his teammates were playing. In any other case, a 39-year-old footballer who resists the end of his career would generate empathy. Yours, perhaps because the contrast with Ander Herrera, who agreed to sign a contract for productivityalready generates more murmurs of annoyance than exclamations of admiration.
Paredes means a solution for any coach. It shapes Boca football. It is the beginning and development of the passing sequences that the team is used to putting together, sometimes to find space on offense and other times, such as in a long stretch in Chile against Universidad Católica, so that the rival team does not attack. Build what is most likely already the best midfield in the country. Each piece fits with the one next to it. Paredes’ partner is Milton Delgado, who does his dirty work and helps him with the clean work. Delgado is in full evolution: he went from being a positional midfielder to being a more expansive, full-court midfielder, one who is encouraged to make decisive passes and get closer to the area. He had to add something new to his game; If he did not succeed, he ran the risk of staying at the bank again even with its attractive conditions. Santiago Ascacíbar provides a productive disorder and Tomás Aranda reminds us of the fertility of the national soil.
Just as Riquelme took some time with the coach, the delay in finalizing an incorporation served to make the great promise appear. If Boca had hired a creative in January or had accelerated in February for Alan Lescano, Aranda would have been covered. From a defect a virtue was born. The kid had not been part of the preseason, but given the plague of injuries he had his chance and, although after other kids (Iker Zufiaurre, Gonzalo Gelini), he earned a place. It has an extraordinary duality: dribble and pass, imbalance and concept. His entry against Gimnasia de Mendoza had an impact despite the final tie. After that match, the opinions that reign in Boca became clear: a captain who is capable of openly saying that his entry was necessary, a coach who, far from feeling unauthorized, recognizes that it is the kid’s time and no longer takes him out.
The decision to have replaced Zeballos in the last game of last year, and the criticism it generated, had left Ubeda shaken. He even seemed to doubt who to change in matches in this tournament; against San Lorenzo, he waited until the 90th minute to make the first change (and took off number 9, Adam Bareiro, when his team was looking for the goal). Today he looks more confident, he manages the size of the squad better. If the polls did not imagine him arriving in April, the probabilities find him renewing in June. All in time, of course. The times of Román and those of football. You have all the semester objectives to meet: the superclásico, qualification to the round of 16 of the Cup as first in the group and nothing less than the Apertura tournament in a club that has not been crowned for too long. Too many commitments for a projection to be made on this roller coaster. Of course, it has several advantages: it knows what it plays, it wins frequently, it has an established coach and, above all, an empowered leader. Boca did, in short, everything it had to do before the defining moments arrived.
