Sunday will be a special day for at least a significant portion of the city of Córdoba. Belgrano will walk out at the beautiful Estadio Mario Kempes hoping to become the first league champions in the province's history, with only River Plate now left standing in their way.
For River, too, the Liga Profesional holds great importance, if perhaps not quite as much as for the de facto hosts in the Kempes, as an early chance for Eduardo Coudet to confirm his standing as a worthy successor to Marcelo Gallardo on the Millonario bench and bring home the club's first Primera title since 2023.
And then there are the rest of us neutrals, who, let's be honest, are most intrigued by the morbidity surrounding the clash between these two sides, the biggest since two unforgettable meetings almost 15 years ago which changed River history forever.
June 2011 feels like a world away now. Argentina’s peso was holding strong at about four pesos to the dollar and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was in the middle of a re-election campaign that would end in a crushing victory, garnering 54 percent of the vote and beating the nearest challenger, Santa Fe Socialist Hermes Binner, by an eye-watering 38 points. On the football front Sergio Batista was preparing to lead the Selección into a home Copa América, doomed to be another frustrating campaign that once more raised the question: would Lionel Messi ever be able to replicate his Barcelona heroics in front of his sceptical countrymen (spoiler: he would). Vélez had just been crowned Clausura champions, beating out Lanús to pick up their eighth Primera title.
River, meanwhile, were staring into the abyss. Years of underachieving had left the club facing a relegation play-off to avoid dropping into the B Nacional for the first time ever. On June 22 the Millonario headed just down the road from the Estadio Kempes (newly remodelled for the Copa América) to face Belgrano, and suffered one of the most humiliating defeats in club history. In the return match four days later Mariano Pavone put River ahead early but went on to miss a penalty as the hosts were held 1-1, a result that sealed their fate and ended an unbroken run of 102 years playing in the top flight.
Reminders of those dark days will be everywhere this weekend. On the bench for Belgrano is Ricardo Zielinski, the mastermind of that play-off triumph a decade and a half ago; while Franco Vázquez, the young star of the 2011 Piratas, is also back to lend his class and experience to this dogged, talented team. Sitting next to Zielinski, moreover, is Juan Carlos Olave, Belgrano's goalkeeper in the Promoción games, Pavone's penalty nemesis and a club idol who played almost 400 games for them between the posts, now a part of El Ruso's backroom staff.
“It's a final that reminds us of some good times,” Zielinski, stone-faced as ever, told reporters after squeezing past Argentinos Juniors in an agonising penalty shoot-out. “We came back for this. The boys played their hearts out. We dedicate this to all our families, to those who have always supported. The people of Córdoba finally get to see a final.” Olave also made allusions to past triumphs: “Back then we were looking to go up and River to stay up. Now everything has changed. All that's left is to win the final and achieve what our fans and we so dearly desire.”
River's stay in the second tier proved a short one. The Millo went up the very next year and, under Ramón Díaz and later Gallardo, built the best team in Argentina if not all of South America over a decade of sustained success. Coudet has the chance to add to that record with victory, but he will have to battle a tough outfit on the verge of making history – not to mention River's own demons, a reminder of the club's lowest depths resurfacing after more than a decade.
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