River experienced a night to forget at Monumental. In a match that had seemed accessible beforehand, Marcelo Gallardo's team was thrashed 4-1 by Tigre, left a very poor impression, and was sent off amid whistles and insults from its supporters, who expressed their anger both at the result and at the manner of the defeat.
The defeat meant the first major blow of the year for the Millonario and reignited doubts about the team's performance. After the match, Gallardo appeared visibly dissatisfied and had already made a drastic decision.
El plantel de River entrenará en su día libre
At Muñeco's request, the squad won't have Sunday off and will train from 11 a.m. at the Ezeiza Camp. Although there won't be physical workloads for those who played, the objective will be to hold an internal talk and begin to correct mistakes.
Gallardo's statements after the match
"It isn't acceptable to lose the way we lost, but it can happen," Muñeco stated at the press conference, after a performance that he described as unexpected. "Unthinkable, in relation to how we had been evolving as a team, everything went wrong for us, we made many mistakes, and Tigre took advantage of them very well. They were very good, and we didn't maintain the continuity in improvement that we had been showing," he analyzed.
The coach insisted that it was "a very bad night" and emphasized that the blow must not drag the team into a negative dynamic that affects the future. "That positive contagion and those good things that had been happening since the beginning of the year made what happened today unthinkable. Today it was a bad match, we played very badly and we made many mistakes, but this must not generate a negative spiral. We are angry, frustrated, we weren't expecting it," he pointed out.
Gallardo se sinceró sobre el mal partido de River
Gallardo also acknowledged that a defeat of this magnitude inevitably brings back recent memories. "Defeat will always, and even more so in this manner, bring back what last year was, but I won't dwell on the past, I will focus on the good and analyze the bad things that we did today," he explained.
Finally, he was clear when pointing out responsibilities: "It wasn't in anyone's mind, but soccer has these things. Analyses, especially when there are specific individual mistakes, are carried out internally," although he admitted that "as a team we failed, we weren't present."
When River plays again
Millonario will try to turn the page in its next clash against Argentinos Juniors, corresponding to matchday 5 of the 2026 Apertura Tournament. The match will be played next Thursday, February 12, starting at 9:15 p.m. at the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium.
