Boca Juniors clinch Argentine league title
Reuters - Monday 05 December 2011, 01:25
Striker Dario
Cvitanich scored two first-half goals as Boca Juniors won the
Argentine league title with two matches to spare when they beat
Banfield 3-0 at a heaving, chanting Bombonera on Sunday.
Midfielder Dario Rivero added the third early in the second
half for Boca, who remain unbeaten after 27 matches going back
to last season and have conceded only four goals in 17 matches
in the Apertura championship.
Second-placed Racing Club were 11 points behind after
Saturday's 2-0 win at Colon in Santa Fe and third-placed Tigre
were 12 adrift before their match at San Lorenzo on Monday.
The win sealed Boca's 24th league title since the Argentine
game went professional in 1931. It was their eighth since the
introduction of two championships per season in 1991 and first
since 2008.
Cvitanich, who began his career at Banfield before moving to
Ajax Amsterdam and Pachuca in Mexico, struck in the 10th minute.
A corner to the far post was returned into the middle where
the ball came back off the bar and was headed off the line as it
pinged around the six-yard box like a pinball before Cvitanich
blasted it through a swarm of defenders and goalkeeper Cristian
Lucchetti.
Cvitanich volleyed his and Boca's second just before the
interval and Rivero caught Lucchetti, who played for Boca last
season, wrong-footed with a dipping shot from outside the box a
minute into the second half.
Captain Juan Roman Riquelme, who had been out for more than
a month through injury, came on as a second-half substitute
before joining in mass celebrations on the pitch, in the stands
and on the terraces.
"I promised [the fans] a championship and we delivered. I
keep my word," Riquelme said in an on-pitch interview.
Boca coach Julio Cesar Falcioni won his second Argentine
league title having won his first in charge of Sunday's
opponents Banfield at the same venue two years ago.
Winning the championship also gave Boca gave another chance
to dig fun at arch-rivals River Plate who were relegated in June
and on Saturday lost 1-0 away to namesakes Boca Unidos.
The match was the last in the career of Hector Baldassi,
Argentina's top referee who officiated at last year's World Cup
finals in South Africa.