Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luciano Vallejo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Atlético Tucumán the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Tucumán this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kevin Ortiz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
9 goals in 14 games at Queretaro — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Atlético Tucumán updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Lautaro Godoy has written the date down.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Atlético Tucumán they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Ortiz is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Atlético Tucumán, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Renzo Tesuri is on it.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Manuel Brondo has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Luis Ingolotti signs something — a contract at Atlético Tucumán or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Atlético Tucumán will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
2 in front and in complete control, and it finished with Aldosivi the happier side. There is no version of this afternoon that Atlético Tucumán will enjoy reviewing.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Manuel Brondo takes the afternoon — 8.93
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Manuel Brondo provided it, and the 8.93 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Leandro Díaz and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Atlético Tucumán told Leandro Díaz something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Atlético Tucumán, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Atlético Tucumán has to find a result from somewhere.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Atlético Tucumán they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Clever Ferreira and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Kevin Ortiz falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Atlético Tucumán can tell you which week it ends in.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Atlético Tucumán, and 8 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atlético Tucumán can pretend not to have heard.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Atlético Tucumán is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Martín Ortega was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Leandro Díaz and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Kevin Ortiz falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Nobody at Atlético Tucumán will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Atlético Tucumán. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Atlético Tucumán have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. German Vallejo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Atlético Tucumán the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Leandro Díaz was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Kevin Ortiz falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
0‑1 to Belgrano, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Enzo Arce left the room before anybody could ask which.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Tucumán this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
A point taken on 89 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
Squad28 Sep 2026
16 new faces, and Atlético Tucumán are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Luis Ingolotti trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
0‑3 against River Plate, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Kevin Ortiz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑3, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Leonel Di Plácido trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Leandro Díaz’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Atlético Tucumán needing him to play as if none of it matters.
In brief
Loan watchThe goals keep arriving from Mateo Coronel’s exile
San Lorenzo go through and Atlético Tucumán go home, 2‑3 the scoreline that did it. The dressing room will call the league the priority now, because that is what dressing rooms say.
Leandro Díaz and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
A 1‑0 win over Argentinos Juniors, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Enzo Arce on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Carlos Abeldaño scored in the 86th minute, Platense had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Atlético Tucumán took the lot.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Tucumán this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
17 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
A 3‑1 win over Dock Sud, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Manuel Brondo takes the afternoon — 8.84
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Manuel Brondo provided it, and the 8.84 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Two goals and a mark of 8.06 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Dinamo Makhachkala had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Leandro Díaz and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Kevin Ortiz falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Ignacio Galván has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Leandro Díaz and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gianluca Ferrari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
200 games in this shirt, through managers and relegations and everything else. Service like it is disappearing from the game and the crowd knows what it is watching.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Renzo Tesuri was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.16. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
1 for Kevin Ortiz, marked 7.54, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. German Vallejo has agreed terms with Comunicaciones for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Atlético Tucumán is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atlético Tucumán this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Leandro Díaz was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Ortiz is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.