Facundo Pons 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 most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. San Martín will quote 17 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Four weeks in which nobody in the division did his job better. The award goes on a shelf and the player goes back into the side, which is the order San Martín prefer.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Ezequiel Parnisari 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Marcos López wants continental football; whether San Martín can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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 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.
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.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Sergio Moretti was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the San Martín dressing room was either.
Facundo Pons 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.
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.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 4‑1, Sergio Moretti could afford to be generous.
Words at San Martín training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Pons 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 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 this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Joaquín Iglesias is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. José Luis Navarro has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Bruno Ramos has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Gabriel López has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Sergio Moretti to a room that had heard them before.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.93 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Facundo Pons 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 a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether San Martín can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at San Martín training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Darío Sand 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.
36 months to run and not a word offered. A club that lets the calendar negotiate for it usually ends up losing to the calendar.
Squad3 Aug 2026
17 new faces, and San Martín 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.