One of the great sickeners about 2020, on top of all the obvious stuff, is that it just so happens to be a leap year and thus saddled us with an extra 24 hours of grimness.
That means it will be 366 days between Flamengo being crowned champions of South America — on November 23, 2019 — and them resuming their efforts to retain it on Tuesday. The holders face Racing Club, but Internacional vs Boca Juniors is the marquee tie in the Copa Libertadores round of 16 as the world’s most football-mad continent looks to anoint its 2020 champion… albeit a coronation that won’t happen until 2021. Again, it’s been one of those years.
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The Libertadores got back underway in September and is now slated for a late January finish, with six Brazilian giants leading the charge. Argentina has three clubs still standing, as does Ecuador, along with two from Paraguay. Bolivian outsiders Jorge Wilstermann and Uruguayan champions Nacional complete the line-up.
Group winners were seeded for the last-16 draw, ensuring some of the tournament’s biggest names will be kept apart until at least the quarter-finals.
Let The Athletic take you through each tie…
Athletico Paranaense vs River Plate
When Athletico Paranaense followed up their 2018 Copa Sudamericana win with success in the Copa do Brasil last year, it felt like the confirmation of a trend. The Curitiba club cannot match the financial clout of some of their domestic rivals, but they have grown in prominence thanks to progressive leadership — typified by their flashy new crest and the reversion of their name from ‘Atletico’ back to its historic spelling with an h — and smart coaching from Tiago Nunes.
But things have been much trickier in 2020. The squad, for a start, has been gradually stripped of much of its star quality. A 12-month transfer ban imposed by FIFA means they can’t buy anyone until next July. Dorival Junior, who stepped in as manager after Nunes was poached by Corinthians, was fired when Athletico plunged down the standings in the Brazilian league. They were in the relegation zone at the start of the month.
The experienced Paulo Autuori has steadied the ship since then, primarily by focusing on the defence: expect two banks of four in front of goalkeeper Santos, and a safety-first approach. That means much will turn on the attacking efforts of the bustling Renato Kayser, plus the ability of Athletico’s promising youngsters — Abner, Reinaldo and Christian — to cope with the pressure of knockout football. Autuori’s Libertadores pedigree will help, but you sense they will live to rue finishing the group stage poorly. One more point from their final two matches would have secured them less daunting opponents.
It feels like a case of when Marcelo Gallardo takes a job with a big European club rather than if. So if this is River Plate’s last dance with their brilliant young coach, expect them to put on a show.
Gallardo is the most successful coach in River Plate’s history (Photo: Amilcar Orfali/Getty Images)
Gallardo’s squad has the right blend of exciting young talent, reliable performers and veteran Argentinians returning after distinguishing themselves in Europe. Getting that formula right tends to drive success in Argentina and Gallardo has done so while playing attractive football, and winning trophies both domestically and further afield. Gallardo already has two Libertadores wins since taking over in 2014, as well as a Copa Sudamericana title (the continent’s version of the Europa League), and was unlucky to come up against such a good Flamengo side in last year’s Libertadores final.
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An interesting name to monitor is Benjamin Rollheiser. The 20-year-old striker impressed Gallardo to such a degree during the pause for the pandemic that he earned a spot in the Libertadores squad list, as well as a new contract with a €20 million release clause. A host of other youngsters — Lucas Beltran, Julian Alvarez, Federico Girotti, Santi Simon, Santiago Sosa and Cristian Ferreira — will also play a part in what could prove to be Gallardo’s swansong.
LDU Quito vs Santos
LDU Quito started the competition with an eye-catching 3-0 win over River Plate and qualified relatively comfortably for the last 16. But the feeling is that this tie comes at a bad time for them, with several players absent and morale not at its highest.
LDU will be without Argentinian playmaker Lucas Piovi, striker Adolfo Munoz and defender Franklin Guerra due to injuries. Central defender Moises Corozo and midfielder Junior Sornoza are also out after returning from international duty with Ecuador, during which there was a mild coronavirus outbreak.
Domestically their form has dipped: they lost the lead in the Ecuadorian top flight last week after a 2-1 defeat at home to Emelec. Uruguayan manager Pablo Repetto referred to that loss as “the worst night” in the club’s recent history — a bit of a statement, but more understandable when you consider they were playing against 10 men from the 27th minute (although LDU defender Jose Quintero was also sent off in the second half).
The pressure is now on Repetto to restore the confidence of a weakened side. He has played with target man Cristian Martinez as a lone striker or paired him with the diminutive Jhojan Julio. But without so many key players, the game management and tactical adjustments will be key to their chances.
Santos have gone through a turbulent spell off the field: they belatedly pulled the plug on the signing of Robinho after justified outcry over his rape conviction in Italy, and a former club president has just been impeached. On the pitch, however, they are putting together a quietly impressive season, particularly in the Libertadores. Santos waltzed their group, dropping just two points — no mean feat, even if the draw was kind to them.
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Theirs is not a team bursting with household names, unlike some of the Santos sides of old: their most recognisable player is probably Uruguay midfielder Carlos Sanchez, and he’s out injured. Yet in front of a workmanlike core, they do have two genuine game-changers in their ranks. The first is Venezuelan winger Yeferson Soteldo, who looks like he’s about 12 years old but is blessed with whipsmart feet and lovely balance. Even he doesn’t always seem to know exactly what he’s going to do next, so defenders generally have no clue.
Marinho, second from left, can inspire Santos in the knockout stages (Photo: Alexandre Schneider/Getty Images)
Then there is the real talisman of the team, Marinho. Direct, explosive and decisive, he is exactly the kind of player who can seize a knockout match by the scruff of its neck. Whether that will be enough to take them deep into this competition is an open question, but coach Cuca — who will not travel to Quito for this first leg due to a recent bout of COVID-19 — will know he gives Santos a fighting chance if they keep things tight at the other end.
Racing Club vs Flamengo
Racing were shaken by an earthquake behind the scenes this week. Club idol Diego Milito quit the club after failing to receive the assurances he needed to continue his impressive work as technical director. “The Prince” had spent the last few years trying to modernise the club with ideas and experiences picked up during his playing career in Europe, helping them win some titles in the process. But too many conflicting interests prompted Milito to walk away and release a statement that didn’t leave too much to the imagination.
“Obviously, I was not able to convince the club,” he said this week. “I was not listened to. I only asked that they let me work in peace. I tried to convince the president to break with old structures that have been in place for a long time and leave behind the old policies of the ’90s.”
Racing breezed through the group but missed out on top spot by a point, leaving them with a tough last-16 tie. That task didn’t seem insurmountable before, but Milito’s departure has shaken the club somewhat. Victor Blanco, the president, is understood to be devastated by the disagreements with the popular Milito and is considering withdrawing from December’s elections. It is up to Sebastian Beccacece to try to restore order on the field, but the mood isn’t great.
Having won the Libertadores in 2019 and clung onto the majority of their best players since, Flamengo were always going to be among the favourites for this year’s tournament. The year 2020 could yet turn out to be successful, but it has been far from stable so far. When Jorge Jesus decided to head back to Portugal in July, it threw an entire project up in the air. Deprived of their touchline deity, Brazil’s best-supported club lurched back into bad habits.
Domenec Torrent, Pep Guardiola’s former assistant at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City, was a brave pick as Jesus’ replacement. Brave, but not especially clever: his structured style of football was at odds with the more anarchic model that had allowed the continent’s best attack to run riot last year. Torrent led Flamengo to a few eye-catching wins — par for the course when you have a squad like theirs — but they were also hammered by Atletico Goianiese, Independiente del Valle, Sao Paulo and Atletico Mineiro. There were no tears shed when the club’s hierarchy wielded the axe at the start of the month.
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The new man in charge is Rogerio Ceni, twice a Libertadores winner as a player and now regarded as the next big thing in Brazilian coaching. He started with a few shaky results but there were positive signs against Coritiba at the weekend and there is a confidence at the club that he will restore some lost lustre. It helps that he now has Flamengo’s four best attackers — Everton Ribeiro, Giorgian de Arrascaeta, Gabriel “Gabigol” Barbosa and Bruno Henrique — all available again after 25 matches. If they click back into gear quickly, they will take some stopping.
Independiente del Valle vs Nacional
Independiente del Valle used to be the minnows from Ecuador whose stadium at a mile-plus altitude in Sangolqui — just outside Quito —would humble the continent’s giants. Today, they are the reigning Copa Sudamericana champions, thanks in large part to the work done by 36-year-old Spanish manager Miguel Angel Ramirez. Independiente play an attractive brand of football at odds with the physical style of many South American clubs.
Arguably even more impressive is their recent record of producing top footballers. The club’s development pipeline has benefited Ecuador’s youth and senior national teams. Sporting Lisbon’s Gonzalo Plata, 20, starred for Independiente as a teenager and will be a senior national team mainstay for years to come. The next cab off the rank is likely to be 19-year-old Moises Caicedo, who started in Ecuador’s recent 6-1 thrashing of Colombia in World Cup qualifying.
Independiente won their first three group matches, outscoring their opponents by a combined 11-0, but then suffered two straight defeats and now face a tough task against a confident Nacional.
The Uruguayans are fairly short on big names — former West Bromwich Albion midfield snapper Claudio Yacob is the standout — but they more than make up for it with their organisation and defensive prowess: they kept four clean sheets in the group and have been similarly stingy in the opening rounds of the domestic league.
Endearingly, they are also hugely reliant on a 36-year-old striker, Gonzalo Bergessio, who has barely stopped scoring since joining the club in 2018. If academy products Thiago Vecino and Alfonso Trezza can chip in with a few more goals, they could be dark horses.
Delfin SC vs Palmeiras
If you are looking for the ultimate underdogs to support in this year’s knockout rounds, say hello to Delfin Sporting Club. The club, whose name translates as Dolphin, are taking part in just their third Libertadores tournament since their creation in 1989. Their multi-coloured kits give them the look of a lower-league club. They are also fourth-bottom in Ecuador’s Serie A this season, which is typical of their inconsistency under Argentinian manager Miguel Zahzu.
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The club from the coastal town of Manta squeaked into the round of 16 from a poor group, despite losing three times and scoring just six goals. Their signature win of the group stage was a 3-0 result at home to Argentinian side Defensa y Justicia, coached by former Chelsea and Inter Milan striker Hernan Crespo. Then, on the final match day, a late winner from 25-year-old Uruguayan central defender Agustin Ale defeated three-time Libertadores champions Olimpia to make history for Delfin.
They will need more of that spirit to stand even an outside chance of further progress. Their hard-nosed style might play in their favour, as will their willingness to defend in numbers. But whether their counter-attacking threat — much of it through pacy winger Janner Corozo — can harm opponents as tough as Palmeiras is another question.
The Sao Paulo side binned Vanderlei Luxemburgo in mid-October and fluttered their eyelashes at a sequence of South American coaches before looking further afield. Abel Ferreira, formerly of Portugal’s Braga and PAOK in Greece, was an unknown quantity in Brazil, but has hit the ground running and transformed what was a flaky side into a far more sturdy proposition.
The squad is strong, with quality and experience in key positions (goalkeeper Weverton, defender Gustavo Gomez, former Shakhtar Donetsk forward Luiz Adriano) and, thanks in no small part to Luxemburgo’s willingness to blood them earlier in the year, a handful of the best young players in Brazil. Electric winger Gabriel Veron and utility man Gabriel Menino are the pick of the bunch, and are likely to be fixtures in the national team for years to come. Throw in canny midfielders including Ze Rafael and Raphael Veiga and you have what amounts to an abundance of riches.
Well, in theory: COVID-19 has hit Palmeiras particularly hard, and so have injuries. A mind-bending 21 players were unavailable for the league game against Goias at the weekend, which must be some kind of record. A few of those should be back for the trip to Ecuador, but there could still be a patched-up look to the side. Will that matter? Probably not: this should be a comfortable assignment, meaning the real task will be building momentum for bigger challenges to come.
Club Libertad vs Jorge Wilstermann
Another club, another managerial project in its early days. Club Libertad are led by 43-year-old Gustavo Morinigo, a former coach of Paraguay Under-17s whose inexperience is a sharp contrast to the decorated resume of his predecessor, former Libertadores winner (and ex-Oxford United manager) Ramon Diaz. Since the change in coach, Libertad have struggled to find consistent form.
Libertad have an experienced spine — if everyone is fit. Colombian Alexander Mejia patrols the midfield, while 37-year-old goalkeeper Martin Silva and right-back Daniel Bocanegra provide stability in the back. He has played sparingly, but legendary Paraguayan defender Paulo da Silva, 40, remains an option in central defence.
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Morinigo’s tactics are attack-minded, which leaves his back line susceptible to counters. Over six group matches, Libertad scored eight goals and conceded 11. Forward Sebastian Ferreira, 22, can be a handful, while 23-year-old Matias Espinoza is a hard-charging winger who can play on either flank. Former Atlanta United winger Hector Villalba is back from injury and should see minutes against Jorge Wilstermann.
The Bolivians have already sprung the biggest surprise of the competition by getting out of a tough group. Wilstermann were drawn in Group C alongside five-time Libertadores winners Penarol and Chilean giants Colo Colo, who were expected to battle for top spot. Instead, Wilstermann — named after a famous Bolivian pilot — emerged as group winners, with Athletico Paranaense in second.
Led by playmaker Patricio ‘Patito’ Rodriguez and organised by Argentinian manager Christian Diaz, Wilstermann are understandably in confident mood. This is a great chance for them to step out of the shadow of Bolivia’s two most successful sides, The Strongest and Bolivar, and maybe even repeat the success of 1981, when they got to the semi-finals.
Internacional vs Boca Juniors
If you want to dress to distress in Porto Alegre at the moment, there’s only one real choice of attire: a Celta Vigo shirt.
Three weeks ago, Internacional were in something approaching dreamland. They were top of the Brazilian league, going strong in the Copa do Brasil and, after living a charmed life in the group stage, looking forward to one of the glamour ties of the round in the Libertadores. Then Celta made their Argentinian coach Eduardo Coudet an offer he couldn’t refuse.
The speed of Inter’s decline since then has been extraordinary. In the last four games, they have been sloppy, disorganised and desperate. To make matters worse, the coaching staff — led by Abel Braga, widely regarded as a deeply underwhelming replacement for the much-loved Coudet — don’t seem to have a handle on things. “If we knew what the problem was, we might be able to solve it,” said assistant manager Leomir de Souza after the 2-1 home loss to Fluminense at the weekend. “Honestly, things are not cool.”
In truth, this could simply be a reversion to the mean. Inter have a decent squad but nothing more than that, and are reliant on a handful of influential players. All-action midfielder Patrick falls into that category, as does Thiago Galhardo, a nomadic playmaker who has unexpectedly transformed into a deadly target man in the absence of the sidelined Paolo Guerrero. When Coudet was there to roar them on, the rest of the side stepped up to chip in. Now he is gone, they look fragile.
Boca Juniors, clearly, are heavyweight opponents. Yet if they are to channel their early 2000s glory days, it will be a victory born of guile and fight over flowing football and scintillating young talent.
Carlos Tevez is still a talisman for Boca Juniors (Photo: Rodrigo Valle/Getty Images)
It probably says a lot about the local leagues in general that Carlos Tevez, now 36, remains Boca’s best chance of winning a first Libertadores in over a decade. Tevez is no longer the bundle of energy he was when he inspired Boca to back-to-back continental triumphs — the Libertadores in 2003 and the Sudamericana in 2004 — and was named South American player of the year three times in a row (2003-05), but he has some help in the shape of Eduardo Salvio, Mauro Zarate and an experienced defensive base. What they seem to lack is the upcoming “jewel” to provide the unexpected.
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Boca turned some heads by re-hiring Miguel Angel Russo, the coach for their 2007 Libertadores triumph, some 13 years and eight clubs later. Russo did manage to edge out River Plate for the domestic title in his first months in charge, however, and now has eyes on repeating their continental glory.
It’s an older, grittier team than the ones that Russo and Tevez enjoyed success with nearly two decades ago, but they still tick the boxes marked “experience” and “fight”.
Club Guarani vs Gremio
Guarani are not as well known as traditional Paraguayan powers such as Cerro Porteno or Olimpia, but they have carried their country’s flag this year, qualifying comfortably for the knockout phase behind Palmeiras in Group B. They’ve shown tactical flexibility under exuberant Argentinian manager Gustavo Costas, who alternated between a direct 5-3-2 and a more fluid 4-1-4-1 throughout the group stage.
They are led by stocky striker Raul Bobadilla, a veteran striker Bundesliga fans will likely recognise. Guarani have two players on loan from MLS expansion side Austin FC: Rodney Redes and Cecilio Dominguez. Redes, 20, is a right-sided winger who enters the last 16 with three assists to his name; Dominguez is usually an impact substitute who plays as a central attacking midfielder. Another player to watch is 28-year-old goalkeeper Gaspar Servio. The Argentinian is an acrobatic shot-stopper whose accurate distribution often kick-starts attacks.
Of the 16 teams left, none scored fewer goals in the group stage than Gremio’s six. The contrast between this year and 2017, when they last won the competition, is stark: they started that campaign by scoring 15 times in their opening six matches. There is talent in the attack — the evergreen Diego Souza, plus home-grown talents Pepe and Jean Pyerre — but the departure of Brazil winger Everton to Benfica has left a sizeable hole.
But there are two obvious positives for Gremio to cling to. The first is that they have one of the meanest defences in South America. Walter Kannemann, Pedro Geromel and Bruno Cortez have played together for years, and there are capable understudies in every position. It is an old stereotype that football in Brazil’s south tends towards the pragmatic, but Gremio are never afraid to grind out a gritty win when required.
Then there is Renato Gaucho, one of the most intriguing coaches on the continent. A showy winger during his playing days (not to mention a committed party animal in his spare time), he has become a fiery, wry, iconoclastic presence on the touchline. He is the biggest star at the club, and you get the sense he likes it that way. He is also, to borrow the Brazilian term, a true “copeiro” — a specialist in cup football, with all the mind games and street smarts it requires. And that skillset can go a long way in the Libertadores.
(Top photos: Getty Images)