Fallen giants #2: River Plate

The River Plate runs along the border of Argentina and Uruguay, but the name given to that stretch of waterway is more commonly associated with a famous Argentine football club which is steeped in history. They have won their national league 33 times, more often than any other club in the country, and some of the game's great players have pulled on the famous white and red shirt.

Known as 'Los Millionarios', River are based in the bourgeois part of Buenos Aires and have formed a fierce rivalry with working-class neighbours Boca Juniors. Founded in 1901, they won their first professional league title in 1932 before going on to become Argentine football's dominant force of the 40s and 50s, when they had players such as Alfredo di Stefano and Omar Sivori. A decline then set in until the mid-1970s, when they took four titles in six years and fielded some of the players who would also star for Argentina in their 1978 World Cup success.

In 1986 River won their first Copa Libertadores title, beating America Cali to become champions of South America. Ten years later they repeated the feat with victory over the same Colombian opponents in the final. The 1996 team featured Argentina stalwarts Ariel Ortega, Matias Almeyda and a young Hernan Crespo, who scored both goals in the second leg of the final, which River won 2-1 on aggregate.

However, as the new millennium arrived, River encountered hard times. Hated local rivals Boca Juniors took over as the top team in Argentina, winning the Copa Libertadores four times in eight years and generally ruling the roost domestically. River's only title since the turn of the century came in 2008 under the guidance of Diego Simeone, who is best remembered in England as the player David Beckham kicked out at in the 1998 World Cup. In the championship immediately after that title win, River finished bottom, which did not result in instant relegation as that process in Argentina is decided over the average performances of three seasons. That is why, despite finishing ninth in the season just gone, Los Millionarios had to contest a play-off against Belgrano Cordoba to secure their top-flight future. A 3-1 aggregate defeat sent this once-proud club, now crippled by debt, out of the top division for the first time in their 110-year history.

River Plate have given the game some of Argentina's best players - di Stefano, Ubaldo Fillol, Daniel Passarella, Mario Kempes, Claudio Caniggia, Gabriel Batistuta - and in more recent times Almeyda, Ortega, Crespo, Pablo Aimar, Juan Pablo Sorin, Juan Pablo Angel, Javier Saviola, Esteban Cambiasso, Martin Demichelis, Javier Mascherano, Gonzalo Higuain and Falcao have all starred for the club. All have gone on to pastures new in Europe, with current teenage sensation Erik Lamela sure to make the move soon. That will be the latest blow to a club that has hit rock bottom.