River and Belgrano under Falcón Pérez: stats and controversies | OneFootball

This Sunday, starting at 3:30 p.m., River and Belgrano will face off at the Mario Alberto Kempes in the Torneo Apertura final. Ahead of this match, the Argentine Football Association appointed Yael Falcón Pérez as referee, with Leandro Rey Hilfer on VAR duty. River is the team he has officiated the most, with a total of 22 matches, while he has refereed Belgrano on nine occasions. He has also been in charge of two matches between the two sides, with one win for each, and he has been involved in some very memorable controversies.

The first River match officiated by Yael Falcón Pérez was on October 9, 2021, against Banfield, in that year’s Liga Profesional, which was won by the team then managed by Marcelo Gallardo. Thanks to an own goal by Gustavo Canto, River won 1-0 at the Florencio Solá.

Since then, he has officiated another 21 matches involving the 38-year-old Buenos Aires native, with a record of nine wins, seven draws (although one ended in a penalty shootout loss against Platense), and six defeats. In total, River picked up 34 of the 66 points at stake, a 51.52% success rate. As for disciplinary decisions, Falcón Pérez awarded four penalties in River’s favor and showed 59 yellow cards and two red cards to River players.

Beyond having officiated two Superclásicos (the 1-1 draw in the 2024 Copa de la Liga regular phase and Boca’s 3-2 win in that tournament’s quarterfinals), the most memorable match he refereed involving River was the already mentioned one against Platense in the 2025 Torneo Apertura quarterfinals. Although throughout the match the Vicente López side complained that the famous “little calls” were going in favor of the home team, what happened at the end was what really sparked the outrage: a possible red card, a wrongly awarded throw-in, a dubious penalty in the final play, and three minutes of stoppage time that infuriated the visiting bench. As a form of protest, Ignacio Vázquez ignored the referee during the coin toss before the shootout.

Belgrano, on the other hand, has been officiated by him on nine occasions: twice when the club was in Primera Nacional, once in the Copa Argentina, and the other six in the top flight. The record is three wins and six losses, meaning 33% of the points earned. He showed 30 yellow cards to Belgrano players, no reds, and did not award them any penalties in their favor (though he did give two against them).

Just like with River, Falcón Pérez also has a controversial match officiating Belgrano. It was on October 24 of last year, in the Copa Argentina semifinal against Argentinos Juniors in Rosario. That match, which the Córdoba side had taken the lead in thanks to a brilliant goal by Lucas Zelarayán, was decided by a controversial penalty for Argentinos. Gerónimo Heredia slightly held Alan Lescano, who went down easily, and Tomás Molina then converted from the spot to send Nico Diez’s side through.

“The penalty is a disgrace. How many times are they going to screw us over? I try not to talk about referees—I haven’t talked about referees in ten years, because if I don’t speak when they benefit me, I’m not going to speak when they hurt me either. But there comes a point when you’ve had enough. Are they going to do something or is this going to keep going like this?” Ricardo Zielinski said in the post-match press conference. He added: “The least we want is someone who is at least committed enough to make the game fair. Not someone who controls the match for you, because he controlled everything, everything.”

Falcón Pérez has already officiated two matches between River and Belgrano. The first, played in Córdoba a few months after Belgrano’s return to the top flight, ended in a 2-1 win for the home side thanks to a brace from Pablo Vegetti.

The second, meanwhile, was a rout for Eduardo Coudet’s team. On April 5 of this year, River won 3-0 with a brace from Tomás Galván and a goal from Facundo Colidio, in one of the team’s best performances with Chacho on the bench.

This Sunday, the balance will tip to one side or the other, and Yael Falcón Pérez will be under the microscope after recent controversies involving both teams and the mistrust with which Argentine refereeing in general is currently being viewed.

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