Caretaker Ricardo Johanssen Announces Lineup

Ricardo Johanssen will be in charge of Newell's Old Boys at least until a permanent replacement for departing Roberto Sensini can be found. He will not have to wait long for his first game at the helm, as the team travels to Buenos Aires on Friday to face Quilmes, the only team with fewer points than Newell's in the current standings.

Johanssen moves up from coaching the reserve team, and he is bringing a few of his favorite players with him. Four of them will be in the starting lineup, and three are defenders who will be making their first appearance for the senior side. I consider this a bit funny, considering that there was a lot of talk about the plan being to work at bringing up players through the youth system, but Sensini always seemed reluctant to give young players a chance.

Here, then, is Newell's expected line up:

Sebastián Peratta
Gastón Guruceaga, Rolando Schiavi, Marcos Benítez, Carlos Del Giorno
Mauricio Sperduti, Diego Mateo, Lucas Bernardi, Cristian Díaz
Daniel Salvatierra, Claudio Bieler
(Players in BOLD making their first appearance)

Great to see Salvatierra being given another opportunity, something he was barely given by Sensini during the Apertura. I also like that we are looking at a 4-4-2 formation. I would have really liked to have seen the double 5 system dropped, but when you have both Mateo and Bernardi... hopefully the change in coach will see them regain their form.

Players that will be making the trip, but not expected to start are Nahuel Guzmán, Ignacio Fideleff, Mauricio Scaglia, Franco Dolci, Carlos Vaca, Fabián Muñoz, Néstor Camacho, Leandro Velázquez, Sergio Almirón, and Leonel Vangioni. Good to see Vangioni on that list. Hopefully he will be healthy enough to work his way back into the starting 11 sooner than later.

Former Newell's and current Quilmes coach Ricardo Caruso Lombardi has announced the following line up:

Emanuel Trípodi
Damián Leyes, Danilo Gerlo, Fabricio Fontanini, Claudio Corvalán
Pablo Garnier, Enzo Kalinski, Gervasio Núñez or Francisco Cerro
Miguel Caneo
Diego Torres y Martín Cauteruccio

Diego Torres? Where do I know that name from? Oh, yes, he was one of the players that the Senseless One drove away from Newell's...


Meanwhile, team president Guillermo Lorente has announced that Marcelo Bielsa has turned down the open coaching position because the legendary coach has other projects that he is working on. He went on to say that Bielsa would be willing to return to Newell's if the team “were in a difficult situation.”

The team is two points from last place half way through the Clausura... how difficult does the situation need to get?