“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 The request is on a desk at All Boys, and it is not being withdrawn.
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.
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Santiago López has come out of that comparison in the side, and All Boys have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. All Boys know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
24 appearances at Sportivo Italiano and the goals have stopped going in. All Boys lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
“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 The request is on a desk at All Boys, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at All Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Tomás Assennato is on it.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Juan Pablo Noce’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and All Boys needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. All Boys know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
24 appearances at Sportivo Italiano and the goals have stopped going in. All Boys lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
Thiago Calone has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
Iván Zafarana 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.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Arsenal tried to reorganise, All Boys did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ricardo Blanco, and the manager let it.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Ezequiel Navarro, on a 4‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what All Boys can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at All Boys 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 All Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
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.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Gabriel Ramírez’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and All Boys needing him to play as if none of it matters.
San Martín will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. All Boys were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what All Boys can pretend not to have heard.
Two goals and a mark of 8.47 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolás Barrientos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Marked 8.10 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. All Boys will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 All Boys, and it is not being withdrawn.
1 for Gabriel Ramírez, marked 6.07, 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at All Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 May 2027
Words at All Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Barrientos 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.
13 combined actions and 6.71. 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.
Every club in football 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 somebody has tried it.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 82 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The words a physio says slowly. 27 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.82 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
1 for Gabriel Ramírez, marked 7.94, 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what All Boys can pretend not to have heard.
Iván Zafarana 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Gabriel Ramírez. 1‑0 against San Martín, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
116 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. All Boys lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Ignacio Palacio wants continental football; whether All Boys can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Words at All Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Axel Abet 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Nicolás Carrizo 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.
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 Tomás Assennato is on it.
123 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. All Boys lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at All Boys is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Nicolás Carrizo and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at All Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Barrientos 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad26 Oct 2026
22 new faces, and All Boys 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.
“I watch every All Boys game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Dinamo Tbilisi runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The words a physio says slowly. 90 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. All Boys have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Nicolás Carrizo 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at All Boys, another week without a signature from Nicolás Carrizo.
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.