“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Olimpia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Olimpia asked and Cerro Porteno said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The name of Bryan Bentaberry has come up in conversations Olimpia were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Olimpia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rodrigo Pérez 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Olimpia can pretend not to have heard.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Olimpia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Olimpia will try again when the window opens; New York City may not be selling by then.
Olimpia asked and Pumas UNAM said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Mateo Gamarra 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.
The demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Derlis Gonzalez is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Central Córdoba SdE had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The offer from Audax Italiano for Lucas Varaldo 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.
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Boca Juniors keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Central Córdoba SdE asked and Corinthians said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
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.
Central Córdoba SdE have made the call to Boca Juniors. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
20 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Olimpia lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Olimpia can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Olimpia 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 Olimpia 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 Franco Alfonso was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody at Olimpia 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.
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 Richard Ortiz has written the date down.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Olimpia that is a harder question to answer.
Ezequiel Naya 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 thought about how hard another man trains, and Horacio Tijanovich was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Something was said to Michael Santos and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Marco Iacobellis trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Position 13 and 10 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Central Córdoba SdE have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Ezequiel Naya 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. Central Córdoba SdE told Facundo Mansilla something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.15 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 Central Córdoba SdE this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
10 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Branco Castelli 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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Platense in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Michael Santos provided it, and the 8.67 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
7 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Central Córdoba SdE and Gimnasia y Esgrima in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 13 combined actions and a mark of 7.03, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Alejandro Maciel 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lucas Varaldo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Central Córdoba SdE the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Diego Barrera 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 keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Central Córdoba SdE, another week without a signature from Lucas Varaldo.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Central Córdoba SdE, and both men came out saying it was fine.
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Central Córdoba SdE the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
They sit in position 6 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 6 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Diego Barrera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Facundo Mansilla 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.
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.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Martín Núñez after 0‑1, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Central Córdoba SdE can tell you which week it ends in.
Santiago Moyano 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.
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 dugout31 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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Martín Núñez to a room that had heard them before.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Central Córdoba SdE, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Santiago Moyano 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Carlos Alberto Vega 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. Felipe Marino 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. Daniel Escobar 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Búfalo 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lucas Bernabéu and Central Córdoba SdE agree another 4 years.
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.