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 intensified after posts by Ángel Di María and, later, Juan Cruz Komar. Now Canalla will face River, and in Núñez they are already bracing themselves. “We have to stay on high alert,” said club president Stéfano Di Carlo, reworking the historic phrase coined by Marcelo Gallardo during his first spell at the club.

“We have to stay alert. This is a united front; the whole River family is a united front, especially in decisive moments, it has always been that way. Players, coaching staff, executives, and River’s 15 million fans. There will be 15 million people paying attention, watching, on high alert, 85,000 in the stadium, on high alert. Hopefully everything goes well because obviously that would be best for everyone,” he said in an interview with the streaming show “Y ya lo ve,” on the Love/ST channel.

The truth is that at River 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 in matches. In fact, in 2025, Marcelo Gallardo’s team at the time went down to 10 men after Juan Carlos Portillo was sent off early for two fouls on Di María.

River, its current form, and the reinforcements to come 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 about River’s football, its present, the situation, you kick up a fuss and complain and demand things as a fan.”

Responding to the insults that have become commonplace around River in recent matches, Di Carlo said: “That is absolutely valid, it’s what I did and have done all my life. Generally, you do that when you feel that those running the club don’t understand what is happening. In that sense, I want to say that we are the first to understand the complexity of the moment.”

Even so, the president stressed that although the team is not dazzling, it is in decisive stages and the results have been positive in these first months of the Coudet era. “This is a moment that has brought us here 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 its Sudamericana group 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 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.