Kranevitter rues River return, details off: “It was hard” | OneFootball

The midfielder is in the country after his spell in Turkish football. He spoke in depth about what his second stint at River was like under Micho and Gallardo and left the door slightly open.

Like Marcelo Gallardo, Matías Kranevitter is a clear example that second spells often do not go as expected. Especially because the bar had been set very high, time goes by, and you are not the same as before. At the end of 2022, the midfielder returned to River hoping to give the midfield a major boost in quality. But it was far from that: injuries and the team’s footballing crisis did not allow him to show his best version, and he left through the back door in mid-2025 for Turkish football.

At Fatih Karagümrük, where he arrived as a result of Marcelo Gallardo’s clear-out after the Club World Cup, he played 26 matches and scored one goal. The end of the season also meant the expiration of his contract. With no competition ahead, he returned to Argentina to assess the next destination in his career and looked back on his frustrated second spell with the Millonario.

“When I had the chance to return to River, I was able to play. It’s difficult; with the quality of players River has, you can’t afford to have a bad game, that’s how big teams are,” said Colo. And he could not hide his disappointment when recalling his return: “In my second spell at River, my ankle did not let me compete in the best way. We know the demands at River. I left very sad; I could not say goodbye to my people. You never expect to leave that way from a place where I grew up. Football is like that, Marcelo’s decision was a sporting one; he wanted what was best for the club.”

The coach who opened the door for him at the Monumental was none other than Martín Demichelis, whom he praised highly: “He surprised me as a coach; everything felt very easy for us. We were winning matches very comfortably and I learned a lot.”

However, even though he is the last coach to win a title at the club, his cycle did not take long to fall apart behind the scenes because of a controversial off-the-record comment that leaked from a conversation with journalists: “What happened was difficult, it was hard to turn the situation around for him. We had a talk with the older players; I think there were other ways to resolve it.”

Gallardo then arrived as his replacement, carrying the stature of a brilliant idol after his golden era on the bench. But nothing went as expected, and he ended up leaving without trophies and amid poor results. “Clubs go through phases; sometimes the ball just does not go in, and results change a lot of things. It has happened to every team. In Marcelo’s second spell, we struggled quite a bit and you do not understand why,” Kranevitter said on DSports Radio.

At 33, he knows he still has enough left in the tank to compete at the highest level. He is currently without a club, and when asked about the chance of wearing the red sash again, he said with a laugh: “I’m always willing to return to River, that’s not even a question, ha.”

After gaining experience in Spain, Russia, and Mexico, he revealed that he wants to continue his career in the country and compete for important things:

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