The crunch year was 2019. It was when the two Lionels — coach Scaloni and star player Messi — began to put together a project that would give Argentina arguably their most successful national team of all time.
In 2019, they were eliminated in the semifinals of the Copa América at the hands of eventual champions Brazil, but the side was starting to come together, and the signs were promising. Messi was integrated into the team as never before, and after going without a senior title since 1993, Argentina have now won the past two editions of the Copa América and, of course, in the middle of those triumphs came the big one: the 2022 World Cup.
But while this has been a great time for the national team, that hasn’t extended to the Argentinian club game, not least because almost all of Messi’s teammates are based abroad. Because 2019 also represents a turning point for the Brazilian game.
Going into that year’s Copa Libertadores, the trophy had only gone to a Brazilian team once in the previous five seasons. And it looked as if it would be once in six as the 2019 final was coming to an end. Right at the end of the match, Rio de Janeiro’s Flamengo were trailing River Plate of Buenos Aires 1-0. The Brazilian club struck twice in stoppage time to win, and the Libertadores has never been the same.
That was the first of a so-far unbroken run of six consecutive Brazilian triumphs, with four of those finals being all-Brazilian affairs. This degree of dominance is unprecedented in the 66-year history of the competition. Finance, of course, has much to do with this, but it is never the entire story. Brazilian clubs were already considerably richer than their continental opponents a decade ago, even during the dry times.
The money has kept rolling in, and crucially, it has been better spent. Foreign coaches, especially from Portugal, have introduced fresh ideas. Scouting is far improved, with more players than ever before signed from neighboring South American countries. Indeed, a fear has grown that there might be no stopping the Brazilian juggernaut.
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Football, though, is always capable of springing a surprise and cutting a giant down to size. Might it be this year? After all, going into the quarterfinals, Brazil provided three of the last eight teams, but Argentina provided four. Might 2025 be the year for Argentine clubs to regain their place atop of the South American club game?
The answer? Probably not.
All hope has not been extinguished. There was always the certainty of one Argentine semifinalist, and Racing came comfortably through their meeting with compatriots Vélez Sarsfield.
Now Racing are on their own, though, because — with plenty of drama along the way — the pair of clashes between South America’s great powers both went Brazil’s way.
This was to be expected. The recent Club World Cup highlighted the gulf between the two: Argentina’s sides eliminated in the group phase, Brazil’s progressing into the knockouts. And, if anything, Flamengo and São Paulo’s Palmeiras came away from the U.S. slightly disappointed by their progress. Both have the resources to aim high.
This year, for example, Palmeiras have brought in center forward Vitor Roque from Barcelona, playmaker Andreas Pereira from Fulham and Paraguayan winger Ramón Sosa from Nottingham Forest. Flamengo have acquired a fine midfield pair in Jorginho and Saúl Ñíguez, from Arsenal and Atlético Madrid respectively, and went back to the Spanish capital to sign the left sided Samuel Lino. The squads of these two giants are worth at least two and a half times the transfer value of any of the other teams in the competition.
For Argentina, River Plate have plenty of tradition and a deep squad of their own, plus what is now the stadium with the largest capacity on the continent. And Estudiantes, under club president Juan Sebastián Verón, have always been able to invest. The early evidence in both ties, though, was that they were going to be blown away.
At home to Palmeiras, River were taken to pieces in the first half, and were fortunate to reach the interval only two goals down. The plight of Estudiantes looked even worse. Their first leg was at Flamengo, and with the Maracanã Stadium in full voice, they were two goals down inside ten minutes. Had both of these games been boxing matches, the referee might have been tempted to stop them early.
But football, of course, offers many more collective options, and at halftime both the Argentine coaches were able to reorganize. River came off their back-three formation and sought to play higher up the field, denying Palmeiras the room to organize their moves. Estudiantes had been unable to deal with the surprise advances of the one-time Manchester United right back Guillermo Varela, and so they brought on Gastón Benedetti to block his space.
Both games were changed, and come the final whistle of the first legs, the Argentines had pulled a goal back and given themselves a lifeline. A week later, they picked up where they left off. Come halftime in the return games, both were ahead on the night and level on aggregate. River Plate silenced the Brazilian crowd by taking the lead, while Estudiantes had their stadium bouncing in La Plata.
And, with no further scoring, the fans were bouncing all the way to a penalty shootout. But Flamengo’s Argentine goalkeeper Agustín Rossi came up big, saving two shots to secure his side’s place in the last four and send the crowd drifting sadly away.
And if Flamengo crawled their way into the semifinals, Palmeiras ended up cruising in style. Defending against the Brazilians’ firepower was always the problem for River, and in the second half they were unable to hold Vitor Roque and — another Argentine — José Manuel López. Palmeiras won 3-1 on the night and 5-2 on aggregate.
Kept apart in the draw, Flamengo and Palmeiras will now be favorites to contest yet another all-Brazilian final. Racing, with a good recent record against Brazilian opposition, will have something to say about that when they take on Flamengo over two legs next month. Palmeiras, meanwhile, will take on Ecuador’s Liga de Quito, who sprung something of a surprise by beating São Paulo home and away, thus ensuring that Brazil will not have three of the four semifinalists. In the previous round, the Ecuadorians saw off last year’s champions Botafogo, so morale will be high — almost as high as the altitude of Quito, always a problem for unacclimated opponents.
The feeling is, though, that both Liga de Quito and Racing have a mountain of their own to climb if they are to keep the conclusion to South America’s premier club competition being another all-Brazilian affair.
