River Plate win 2018 Copa Libertadores: Stunning Juan Quintero goal downs Boca Juniors at Santiago Bernabeu

It took 210 minutes of football, spread across four weeks and, regrettably, two continents, for River Plate to eventually triumph in probably most infamous Copa Libertadores final in history with a 5-3 aggregate victory in Madrid.

Juan Quintero's extra-time stunner proved the decider, the Colombian's brilliant strike coming after Dario Benedetto's Boca Juniors opener had been cancelled out by Lucas Pratto for an aggregate score of 3-3 at the end of normal time.

Cristian Pavon, the exciting young winger who showed glimpses of his talent in Argentina's ill-fated World Cup campaign, was fit to start for Boca, with Carlos Tevez left on the bench, while River's biggest injury doubt coming in, Quinteiro, began what would end as the best night of his career, from the bench.

The game's early exchanges were predictably frantic and at the centre of it all was Pablo Perez, the Boca captain who'd been taken to hospital with an eye injury after the bus attack that sparked the relocation of this game in the first place.

He was fouled inside a minute, booked - and perhaps lucky not to see red - for a stamp before half-time, and involved in just about every incident of note in between.

Peeling to the back post off a corner, he caught a cracking volley on the swivel, but put it straight at Franco Armani, before his blocked shot whistled inches over the head of Nahitan Nandez, who would surely have nodded home.

Chances were coming not from carefully crafted build-up, but rebounds, set pieces and mistakes.

And somewhat ironically, it was a mistake from Boca's own goalkeeper, Esteban Andrada, that kick-started the chaos that led to their opener.

Shanking a clearance and stranding himself out of his goal in the process, Andrada looked to have gifted River a rare opening, only for Gonzalo Martinez's cut back to evade everyone and tee up the Boca break.

Dario Benedetto was fed in the River half, a picture of calm as he watched the desperate Jonatan Maidana go sliding by, overcommitted when in any other game he would surely have stood off his man. With just Armani to beat, Benedetto paused again, waiting for a second ill-judged attempt to thwart him, and side-footed home.

River threw on Quintero with a little over half an hour to go, looking to take advantage of their first real period of dominance in the game.

The equaliser - River's third across the two legs - had been coming since the break, and was created by pretty much their first flowing move of the match, with Lucas Pratto on hand to finish it with a cool swept strike.

There was then a bizarre incident when Boca appealed for a penalty and were instead given an indirect free-kick inside the River box, essentially for a dangerous high boot where no contact was made, as extra-time moved from possibility to probability, to inevitability.

The game swung River's way two minutes into the extra period, when Barrios, the Colombian who should have been sent off for a head-butt on Jordan Henderson at the World Cup, received a second yellow card for a needless, studs-up challenge on halfway.

Starting XIs

Boca Juniors XI: Andrada, Buffarini, Magallán, Izquierdoz, Olaza, Nández, Barrios, Pérez, Pavón, Benedetto, Villa.

River Plate XI: Armani, Montiel, Maidana, Pinola, Casco, Perez, Ponzio, Palacios, Fernandez, Martinez, Pratto.

River piled forward, and took the lead for the first time in this final when the brilliant Quintero cracked a stunning strike in off the bar with little back lift from the edge of the box.

The title was wrapped up at the death as Gonzalo Nicolas Martínez fired into an empty net to seal a 5-3 aggregate victory.

Boca brought Tevez into the mix but then lost Fernando Gago to injury, finishing defeated and with nine men, their fate confirmed when Gonzalo Martinez found an empty net on the break to seal the deal.

Stay tuned for reaction and fall-out from the Copa Libertadores final...