This week marked the real beginning of the world's most exciting club football competition. The Copa Libertadores opened its group phase in typically explosive fashion, delighting fans from across South America – with the exception of the Boca Juniors faithful, still stinging from their painful exit in the preliminary stages and deprived of continental football for the rest of 2025.
We opened with another stunning result for Racing Club, who continue to shine on the international stage even as La Academia flounder closer to home. Fresh off defeat to Independiente Rivadavia in the domestic Liga Profesional de Fútbol, Racing looked a different team entirely as they headed to the north of Brazil and returned with another Serie A scalp for their collection. Fortaleza were dispatched 3-0 in front of their own fans on the back of a second-half performance for the ages and can probably feel fortunate, like Botafogo before them, not to have gone down by an even more embarrassing margin to the Copa Sudamericana champions.
Gustavo Costas' charges at this point must be seriously considering an application to the Brasileirão after downing yet another team from the country whose dominance at continental level is supposedly unchallenged. Since the start of 2024, Racing faced Brazilian teams 10 times across the Sudamericana, Recopa and Libertadores, winning seven of those games, drawing once and losing twice. This year alone La Academia have racked up three victories over Botafogo and Fortaleza, only one fewer than they have managed across the entirety of the current Liga Profesional campaign. A note aside for the exceptional Juan Nardoni, who came within a hair's breadth of converting a goal that would have been a Puskas Award challenger as the midfielder weaved straight through the heart of the home defence before his shot was only just kept out.
Racing's triumphant Copa form and forgettable domestic showings immediately bring to mind the heyday of Marcelo Gallardo and River, who famously had to wait a full seven years before delivering a first league title having swept the board on the continental level under ‘El Muñeco.’ As of late River haven't looked particularly convincing at home or abroad, but they did enough to kick off their own Libertadores campaign with a win on Wednesday. Again, it wasn't particularly pretty, but Paulo Díaz's close-range finish in the first half was all River needed to secure three points away to Universitario in Lima
The rest of the Argentine cup contingent had mixed fortunes. Independiente literally ran out of breath in their Sudamericana opener, with Rojo forward Gabriel Ávalos needing to be administered oxygen on the field during a tough 2-0 defeat to Nacional de Potosí played a dizzying 3,800 metres above sea level. Estudiantes had their own daunting away trip to contend with. In what is now a classic component of continental competition the Pincha travelled first to Medellín and then on to Valencia by charter flight to face Venezuela's Carabobo due to the travel restrictions between the two countries. It did not affect a very solid showing from the visitors who won out 2-0 to start the group stage on the right foot. Back in the Libertadores, Vélez put aside their own domestic strife with a gripping comeback at home to Peñarol which included two goals in the last 10 minutes; while there was no joy for Talleres in Córdoba as they went down to São Paulo.
Talleres' misfortune aside, it seems that Costas has emboldened an entire continent with his no-holds-barred approach to taking on South America's powerhouse. Unión and Huracán both followed Racing's lead by conquering Brazilian opposition, with the Globo pulling off a famous 2-1 victory over Corinthians in the Sudamericana while the Santa Fe side downed Cruzeiro at home.
Peru's Melgar and Cienciano also raised some eyebrows by holding Vasco and Atlético Mineiro to draws, the former playing out a six-goal thriller where one of the hosts' goals came from (logically enough) Racing academy graduate Facundo Castro. Perhaps most impressive of all, Universidad de Chile inflicted a 1-0 defeat on defending Libertadores champions Botafogo, only their seventh win ever against Brazilian opposition and first since 2018.
Are we witnessing a changing of the guard in South American football? It is too early to tell, but plenty of teams are suddenly willing to take a leaf out of La Academia's book and make life uncomfortable for a nation which has had its own way for far too long in the Copas.
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