Di Carlo's warning before River v Central semi-final: «15m fans on alert» | OneFootball

Rosario Central beat Racing in Arroyito on a night full of controversy, which escalated after posts by Ángel Di María and, later, Juan Cruz Komar. Now Canalla will face River, and from Núñez they have already started bracing for it. “We have to stay on high alert,” said club president Stéfano Di Carlo, in a reworking of the historic phrase coined by Marcelo Gallardo during his first spell at the club.

“We have to be alert. This is one unit; the whole River family is one unit, especially in decisive moments, it has always been that way. Players, coaching staff, directors, and River’s 15 million fans. Here there will be 15 million people paying attention, watching, on high alert, 85 thousand in the stadium, on high alert. Hopefully everything goes well because obviously that will be best for everyone,” he said in an interview with the program “Y ya lo ve,” on the Love/ST streaming channel.

The truth is that at Millonario they feel they will have to be very careful on the night at the Monumental and manage their anxiety on the field against an opponent that usually takes advantage of the emotional swings of matches. In fact, in 2025 Marcelo Gallardo’s team at the time was reduced to 10 men after Juan Carlos Portillo was sent off early for two fouls on Di María.

River, its current form and the reinforcements on the way Beyond the match itself, the club president also referred to the current moment of Coudet’s team and the upcoming transfer window, where he promised they would be very active. “River is going to strengthen the squad, that’s a fact. The other day I was thinking that before becoming an executive I was always a River fan, I was outside the club’s leadership when I was very young, and sometimes when you see things you don’t like regarding River’s football, its present, the situation, you kick up a fuss and complain and demand as a fan.”

Picking up on the insults that have become commonplace around Millonario in recent matches, Di Carlo said: “That is absolutely valid, it’s what I used to do and what I did my whole life. Usually, you do that when you feel that those in charge of the club do not understand what is happening. In that sense, I want to say that we are the first to understand how complex this moment is.”

Even so, the president stressed that, although the team is not dazzling, it is in decisive stages and results have gone its way in these first months of the Coudet era. “It is a moment that has brought us this far with enormous credit to this squad and above all to Chacho, but beyond that, of course River still isn’t fully convincing in the way it plays football”.

“Maybe any other team in Argentina, with this current situation, top of the Sudamericana standings and still competing in a semifinal, would be satisfied. But we at River feel that River has to keep improving and play better. That’s where I say, ‘River’s fans and members can rest assured that we all see the same thing, that we are aware of the issues we have to address.’ We are already thinking, planning, and working because River has to keep growing”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.