Elías Brizuela 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 23 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.
Two sides from the top of the table, one afternoon, and a month of talk decided in ninety minutes. San Martín de Burzaco will not use the word title this week and will not stop thinking it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iván Pomba was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 7.43 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, San Martín de Burzaco had the best player on the pitch.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Cristian Peralta on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Elías Brizuela 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 Rodrigo Velázquez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
8 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. San Martín de Burzaco know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at San Martín de Burzaco. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
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 Cipriano Treppo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lucas Lezcano signs something — a contract at San Martín de Burzaco or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
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.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee San Martín de Burzaco could ask drops and the wages Kevin Denis can ask rise.
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 Emanuel Zagert has written the date down.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Martín de Burzaco this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Elías Brizuela 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.
A 1‑0 win over Deportivo Merlo, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad2 Nov 2026
José Geneiro 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.
9 combined actions and 7.78. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Adrián Calello has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at San Martín de Burzaco, and it is not being withdrawn.
Elías Brizuela 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. Rodrigo Velázquez 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.
At 38, 3 points below where he was, and a body that has started charging interest. It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph on this page.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Cristian Peralta chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Two goals and a mark of 8.44 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” San Martín de Burzaco have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Marked 7.96. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Elías Brizuela 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.
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.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 39 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for San Martín de Burzaco is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
He is 23 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 37 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for San Martín de Burzaco is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rodrigo Díaz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Emanuel Zagert and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at San Martín de Burzaco, another week without a signature from Adrián Calello.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Damián Ramírez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Deportivo Laferrere next, and one man in the San Martín de Burzaco dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what San Martín de Burzaco can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Martín de Burzaco this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Everybody saw it before anybody said it. At 35 the numbers say 3 points down on what he was, and the question for San Martín de Burzaco is how to handle a man they owe a great deal.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Rodrigo Velázquez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and San Martín de Burzaco know which stage they are at.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Cristian Peralta after 0‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at San Martín de Burzaco this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Velázquez 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.
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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Nicolás Gauna is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
Damián Ramírez is 36 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Sacachispas in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ignacio Serpa signs something — a contract at San Martín de Burzaco or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutDavid Soria knocks on the manager's door