River begins its Copa Sudamericana campaign on Wednesday against Blooming at the Estadio Ramón Aguilera Costas in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, with kickoff set for 21:30. The match will be shown on DSports and DGO.
The trip comes after River won four consecutive matches in the Torneo Apertura since Eduardo Coudet arrived, but it also arrives with important absences. Maxi Salas and Marcos Acuña were suspended against Palmeiras in the 2025 Libertadores quarterfinals, Giuliano Galoppo is recovering from a sprained left ankle and hopes to be back against Racing on Sunday, and Franco Armani, Portillo and Maxi Meza are still working their way back from injury.
That mix of momentum and missing pieces is the real backdrop to River’s first test in the copa sudamericana. Bolivia has usually been an uncomfortable away stop for the club, which did not win any of its last four visits there, with one draw and three losses. This time, though, the setting is different enough to matter: Santa Cruz de la Sierra is in the center of the country’s lowlands and sits 420 meters above sea level, so the altitude factor that often shapes matches in Bolivia is not present.
River’s lineup also points to a night of debuts and adjustments. Santiago Beltrán, 21, is one of the starters and will make his international debut after keeping seven clean sheets in 13 matches. Aníbal Moreno and Fausto Vera are also set for their first international appearances as River players, while Matías Viña comes in for Acuña after the suspension. Viña already has 27 Copa appearances across spells with Nacional, Palmeiras and Flamengo, giving the back line a veteran presence that contrasts with Tomás Galván, who is in the squad after scoring two goals against Belgrano at the Monumental and has seven Copa appearances from loans at Defensa y Justicia and Vélez.
River is carrying more than one story into Santa Cruz, but the sharpest one is simple: a team in form is entering its first continental match with enough injuries and suspensions to make the margin for error thin. That is what turns one match into a real early test of the new spell under Coudet.
