Marked for Thiago Almada
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Sep 2026
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around River Plate people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market7 Sep 2026
The deal that would have taken Mauro Arambarri to Olympique de Marseille has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to River Plate with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Market7 Sep 2026
The offer from Catania for Tobías Ramírez 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at River Plate training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lautaro Rivero 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
13 new faces, and River Plate 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Lucas Martínez Quarta 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.
Market7 Sep 2026
Everyone has stopped pretending: Foggia will make the call about Francisco Ortega this week. River Plate have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Thiago Almada named in the team of the month
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Thiago Almada is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market31 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. River Plate have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Match26 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Almirante Brown, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match29 Aug 2026
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Match26 Aug 2026
There were 89 minutes on the clock and Almirante Brown had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and River Plate did not stop to explain themselves.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.50, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market31 Aug 2026
Leganés pay $7.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Giorgio Costantini did not need any: 7.66, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match29 Aug 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now River Plate have 4 straight wins of it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Tomás Galván beats them one at a time
Successful dribbles: 25. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over San Miguel, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match22 Aug 2026
Sarmiento will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. River Plate were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market24 Aug 2026
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around River Plate people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Match19 Aug 2026
Kendry Páez wins it after the whistle should have gone
113 minutes played. Kendry Páez found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and San Miguel went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Olympique de Marseille for Mauro Arambarri 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.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Tomás Galván had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Kendry Páez, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.82
A mark of 7.82 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 19-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The crowd has taken to Kendry Páez
At 19 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.43, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Aug 2026
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer from Pescara for Juan Fernando Quintero 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Thiago Almada wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at River Plate hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Mauro Arambarri commits to River Plate for another 4 years.
Boardroom10 Aug 2026
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Mauro Arambarri 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Thiago Almada at his very best
Marked 8.18. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at River Plate.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; River Plate are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer from Mallorca for Ángel Correa 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.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
There is money circling River Plate
Nothing signed, nothing denied, and a lot of people suddenly very careful about their wording. Supporters who have been through one of these know the quiet part lasts months.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. 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.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Nicolás Otamendi and River Plate agree another 1 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at River Plate this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“139 caps was 139 more than the boy who started ever expected.” At 38 he has stepped away from the national side and has not stepped away from River Plate.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. River Plate have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad3 Aug 2026
17 new faces, and River Plate 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.