River Plate are Champions of Argentina, for now.

The league system in Argentina, or lack of it, dictates that the domestic calendar is chopped and changed at will by the association and varies in format almost every year.

At the moment, instead of having a full league system in place, the Argentine clubs spend half of the year playing in a league format before a two-week break. Then, a second tournament that includes a league and knock-out phase begins. It’s known as the ‘Copa’ and it starts this weekend.

In late July River Plate were crowned ‘League Champions’ for the 38th time. In winning the latest edition of the ‘Liga Profesional’ they took home over $500,000 in official prize money and perhaps even more importantly they claimed bragging rights over all of their fierce Buenos Aires rivals. At least until the next trophy is lifted.

River won the league at a canter in the end, finishing 11 points clear of second place side Talleres. The ‘Banda Roja’ won 19 of their 27 league games and only lost four matches during the campaign. They cruised to a comfortable league victory thanks to their particularly spectacular record at home, where they won all but one match, scoring 27 goals and conceding just six.

Despite a mixed start to the season River Plate spent the last 19 matchdays at the top of the table. With this they allowed themselves enough breathing space to rotate players and navigate a particularly tough Copa Libertadores group, that included Fluminense of Brazil, The Strongest from Bolivia and Peru’s Sporting Cristal.

In the Copa Libertadores, just as in the national league, home form was key. River won three games out of three at the Estadio Más Monumental to book their place in the knockout stages of the competition. They even won at home in the next round of the tournament too, but were then knocked out by Internacional of Brazil. The tie finished level on aggregate, but River Plate were sent home after a long and tense penalty shoot-out.

This has all happened in new manager Martin Demichelis' first year at the club, and given their league triumph it’s already been a success for the new boss. The ex-River Plate, Bayern Munich and Manchester City player won over 50 senior international caps for Argentina and even scored at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa in an important victory against Greece.

Demichelis has stayed true to River Plate’s philosophy of free-flowing attacking football. River are especially delightful to watch when they play at home and have a number of fabulous attacking players in their side, like Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Fernández, Ezequiel Barco and Nicolás De La Cruz.

Demichelis’ only job before taking the helm at River was as the Bayern Munich second team coach, so his appointment was somewhat of a risk. Unproven at the top level as a coach and still just 42 years of age, Demichelis had to step into the shoes of Marcelo Gallardo. Gallardo is easily the most successful and popular River Plate coach in recent history. Also an ex-pro with River, he went on to win two Copa Libertadores titles as manager of the club in 2015 and 2018.

Unfortunately for River since their league victory they have been knocked out of the Copa Libertadores and lost one of their key players in Lucas Beltran. The 22 year-old striker had provided 20 goal contributions in 35 appearances for River this year but has now moved on to Italian club Fiorentina for a fee in the region of $13 million.

River Plate will have to work hard in the second part of the season if they want to stay on top of rivals like Boca Juniors, who have added the experienced forward Edinson Cavani to their ranks. The ultimate goal of continental success is now impossible for River, but there is still a domestic trophy to fight for. Their huge fan base will expect nothing less.

River Plate open up their ‘Copa’ campaign on Sunday night, away to Argentinos Juniors at the Estadio Diego Armando Maradona.