River Plate and Boca Juniors drew 1-1 in the last clásico of the Torneos de Verano on Sunday night, after which a penalty shootout decided that the Copa Revancha went to River, who won the penalties 3-2. You can watch both goals and the shootout right here. Lucas Viatri headed Boca into the lead after [. Click to continue reading...

The goals from Saturday night's match in Mar del Plata between Independiente and Racing are right here. Racing claimed the Copa Ciudad de Mar del Plata with a 2-1 win over their Avellaneda rivals, with goals from new signing Claudio Bieler and Matías Cahais giving them the advantage before El Rojo's consolation with 8 minutes [. Click to continue reading...

It may not count for anything, but a superclásico always attracts a lot of attention regardless, so here are the goals from Wednesday night's 3-1 River Plate victory in the Copa Desafío in Mar del Plata. The two teams will square up again in Mendoza at the weekend for the Copa Revancha. Paraguayan starlet Ricardo [. Click to continue reading...

I'm giving the Torneos de Verano a fairly wide berth, as readers may have noticed, mainly because I find them mind-numbingly dull. All the same, it would be wrong to totally ignore them, and there've been some interesting results in the last few days. Here, then, you can watch the goals from Estudiantes' 4-1 demolition [. Click to continue reading...

There you'll see, during the Torneo de Veano, an Argentinean summer tournament won by Independiente via a 3-2 score, River Plate's Maximilliano Coronel achieve sitter missing infamy two minutes into the video. Fortunately for him, the tournament is rather insignificant; unfortunately, he now lives in the YouTube generation. Click to continue reading...

Here we are, finally back at full speed. Well, almost, anyway. We don't have the Argentine Clausura or Brazilian Serie A yet, but we do have the Torneo de Verano and Paulista League. Almost all of the European Leagues are back in action, save Russia, which won't start for several weeks yet. Nevertheless, we're pretty damn close.

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A quick news update this one: It was confirmed on Thursday that the Argentine national team will play two friendlies in Buenos Aires prior to leaving for the World Cup. The original plan was to play the matches in Europe (fans there have more money, you see), but the players apparently requested that they play [. Click to continue reading...

The first football of the new year is already underway in Argentina; on Saturday Banfield and Huracán played out a 0-0 draw in which the champions of Argentina had more chances but couldn't put them away with Santiago Silva, whilst in the first of the AFA's official triangular tournaments (there's no round robin of the [. Click to continue reading...

At first it appeared that we were finally back at a level in which we could bring back the Top Five Matches of the Week. The top three domestic leagues in the world were all back in action, as was the Liga Sagres. Also, the Torneo de Verano started in Argentina as well as the continuation of the Interliga in Mexico.

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First of all, happy new year, HEGS readers! On Sunday the first of Argentina's clubs returned to their training facilities to prepare for the pre-season of the Torneos de Verano and (for some) Copa Libertadores qualification. The new year brings familiar issues though: Banfield are starting to accept that they're likely to lose Santiago Silva, whilst [. Click to continue reading...

a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XDmA8yH7eZ0/SclQQXye1ZI/AAAAAAAAC70/Lavin5GFFJk/s1600-h/milanao.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5316869077281461650" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 290px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_XDmA8yH7eZ0/SclQQXye1ZI/AAAAAAAAC70/Lavin5GFFJk/s400/milanao. Click to continue reading...

Wednesday brought the news that Cristian Fabbiani will be staying with Newell's Old Boys after his attempted signing by River Plate finally fell through, and a late equaliser ensured they could only draw with San Lorenzo in their final Torneo de Verano match (Boca having claimed the summer title by beating Racing 2-0 on Tuesday [. Click to continue reading...

Pre-register at the NEW football site 11×2 today Watch the match LIVE here – Highlights here www.mightyfootball.com Click to continue reading...

Pre-register at the NEW football site 11×2 today Watch the match LIVE here – Highlights here www.mightyfootball.com Click to continue reading...

It's been a busy few days for Sergio Batista's Under 20 team in Venezeula whilst I've been away. Two more group matches have yielded four points in spite of underwhelming performances - you can see highlights of both games here. In Mar del Plata on Saturday, Boca Juniors beat River Plate in the year's first [. Click to continue reading...

I'm in Manchester for a couple of nights this weekend, sorting out some final plans for my upcoming trip to Mexico. What this means is that there won't be any immediate write-ups of Friday and Saturday's major matches; to wit, the Sudamericano Sub 20 group stage game between Argentina and Peru in Maturín, Venezuela on [. Click to continue reading...

The latest Torneo de Verano match was up in Argentina's Andean northwest, and the Salta crowd saw a Boca reserve side take on an Independiente team still struggling to regain the cohesion of the 4-0 win over Racing in the summer's first match. Boca won 2-0. Carlos Ischia was keeping back Boca's first string for the [. Click to continue reading...

Sunday night's Torneo de Verano match took place in the Estadio Malvinas Argentinas in Mendoza, and saw Racing leading in a closely-fought game which only came to something approximating life in the second half. With almost the last attack of the game, though, Néstor Gorosito's men got a deserved equaliser to remain unbeaten after two [. Click to continue reading...

Argentine champions Boca Juniors sent out a mostly reserve side for their first match of 2009, but were still by far the better team against San Lorenzo in Mar del Plata. All the same they couldn't find a way past the Cuervo backline. Earlier on Saturday, in Sao Paulo, Estudiantes got battered 5-1 by Corinthians. Click to continue reading...

Yes, that's right. San Lorenzo entered the summer action in Mar del Plata on Wednesday night against Racing, and they suffered the indignity of actually losing to Juan Manuel Llop's side. In what was essentially a match between reserve sides, there was plenty of poor passing and neither side looked fully interested. Click to continue reading...

Néstor Gorosito's head and neck (not to mention most of his back) must be absolutely sweltering under that mullet. His new team managed to keep cool enough in their 2009 Torneo de Verano debut, though, that after going 1-0 down to Independiente shortly before half time, an impressive River Plate (in so far as a side [. Click to continue reading...

Independiente and Racing Club played out a pre-season clásico de Avellaneda down by the seaside in Mar del Plata on Saturday night, and the result wasn't an encouraging one for Racing fans hoping their side will be able to keep up appearances in the Clausura and avoid another relegation battle. With goals from Hernán Fredes, [. Click to continue reading...

Yes, it's January, and thus to the majority of HEGS readers that headline is six months early, but Argentina's in a different hemisphere, you know. And the summer friendlies are just about to start. There's the traditional Torneo de Verano between the 'Big Five', as well as the other regular events - the 'City Cups' [. Click to continue reading...

With most of the Primera A sides returning for pre-season training (yes, I know according to the AFA we're halfway through the season), a few of them had new managers on Monday. River Plate, of course, are now overseen by Néstor Gorosito, but they're not the only ones. Vélez Sársfield, Independiente and Argentinos Juniors all have [. Click to continue reading...

For the second year running, River Plate's fans can celebrate on the beaches of Mar del Plata after their side succesfully defended the Torneo de Verano trophy won last January. The extra-heated atmosphere that River - San Lorenzo matches have taken on since Ramón Díaz took over at the Boedo club was present as ever, [. Click to continue reading...

Racing and Independiente played out the most boring match of the 2008 Torneo de Verano on Sunday night, drawing 0-0 in front of stultified fans in Mendoza. With this result, Independiente lead the table, and will claim the title unless River beat San Lorenzo in the one remaining match, on Tuesday night. Click to continue reading...

Well, that's one way to do it. Carlos Ischia wasn't the Boca fans' choice of new manager, and his appointment caused some anger towards Pedro Pompilio when the latter first unveiled him, but on Saturday night, in the Estadio Mundialista of Mar del Plata, he took a huge step to winning over the fans: He [. Click to continue reading...

In a dire match in Mar del Plata, Independiente and San Lorenzo drew 1-1 in the Torneo de Verano. Once again, it was a match which saw a mix of first-teamers and reserves, with Pedro Troglio sending out a more or less full-strength Rojo side and Ramón Díaz preferring to experiment with kids and substitutes [. Click to continue reading...

It's difficult to know who'll be more disappointed after Tuesday night's Torneo de Verano match-up. On the one hand, Racing are at a low enough point that they'll be expected to be happy with a goalless draw against a team made of youth players and reserves. On the other, Boca's youth players and reserves, who [. Click to continue reading...

And us English think Newcastle United are a joke team. The pre-season in Argentina continues, and there's been more mudslinging and attempts to get out at one of the country's biggest clubs - and this time some of it's even come from the manager himself. OK, you know I'm talking about Racing because you've read [. Click to continue reading...

The highlight of Boca vs. San Lorenzo on Saturday night was a classic from the scrapbook: a free kick taken from a collection of Juan Román Riquelme's finest, on the day the world's finest playmaker returned to his boyhood club. One small difference, though: it was Claudio Morel Rodríguez, not Riquelme, who placed the ball [. Click to continue reading...

Lionel Messi's training with Barcelona during the week has gone well, and he's included in Frank Rijkaard's squad for Sunday's Spanish First Division match against Racing de Santander. In perhaps the only Argentine-player-related story that could have eclipsed that one, the Torneo de Verano will see a big moment for Boca Juniors later on Saturday: [. Click to continue reading...

In his second match in charge, Diego Simeone has his first win as River Plate manager. The Torneo de Verano continued in Salta on Friday night, as Simeone's side met his former playing club Racing, and won 2-0 thanks to some good play and a couple of red cards for La Academia. Elsewhere, the invitational [. Click to continue reading...

Diego Simeone's plans for River Plate's pre-season continued as he'd been hoping on Thursday, when Rodrigo Archubi flew into Buenos Aires and put pen to paper on a contract that could see his loan move become permanent at the season's end. Meanwhile, the true identity of Simeone's first-choice XI remains a secret, but River's open [. Click to continue reading...

Like Diego Simeone at great rivals River Plate, new Boca Juniors boss Carlos Ischia started his tenure with a Torneo de Verano friendly against Independiente in Mar del Plata. Unlike Simeone's River, there were some first-team players in Boca's lineup: Leandro Gracián was given the playmaker's role and Matías Silvestre was sent off late on. Click to continue reading...