Words at O'Higgins training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Toloza 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 O'Higgins, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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 Alan Robledo has written the date down.
Some goals win a match and some take one off somebody else. Eduardo Salvio scored in the 88th minute, Platense had already begun thinking about the journey home, and Lanús took the lot.
At 36 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.02 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lanús this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Octavio Ontivero is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Eduardo Salvio. 2‑1 against Platense, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
0‑3. Cruzeiro play this football every year and it showed in every part of the pitch. The lesson is expensive and, for a club at this stage, probably necessary.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Lanús can pretend not to have heard.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Walter Bou had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Colo-Colo were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Omar Carabalí 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.
2‑2, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Claudio Pulgar was not hiding it after 2‑2, and nobody in the O'Higgins dressing room was either.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” PAS Giannina had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolás Pelaez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lanús the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Eduardo Salvio 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.
Dealt with internally, which is the phrase a club uses when it would rather nobody asked twice. He will be fined, he will apologise, and he will play on Saturday.
At 21 he was better than everybody his age in the division for four weeks running, which is harder than one good afternoon. Lanús will try not to make too much of it.
10 goals in 5 games at O'Higgins — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Lanús updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Nobody at Lanús 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. David Fernández is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
11 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Thiago Vecino trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Universidad de Chile.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Juan Leiva’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and O'Higgins needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Union Espanola will want this one forgotten quickly: 6‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. O'Higgins were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
“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 O'Higgins, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 10.00 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
1 for Miguel Brizuela, marked 7.92, 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 offer from Orijent 1919 for Esteban Calderón was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
6 goals in one match, Walter Bou on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of O'Higgins and Union Espanola.
Successful dribbles: 24. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Omar Carabalí 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 the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Thiago Vecino wants continental football; whether O'Higgins can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Deportes Concepción will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Nicolás Araya has pre-agreed a move to O'Higgins, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
A 2‑1 win over Audax Italiano, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at O'Higgins training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Felipe Faúndez 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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Claudio Pulgar on a 2‑1 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
0‑0 against Deportes Santa Cruz, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.03 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Omar Carabalí 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Erick Aravena 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Matias Montecinos is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Claudio Sierralta is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.