Marked for Fausto Vera
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings24 May 2027
A brace, and Fausto Vera takes the afternoon — 8.88
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Fausto Vera provided it, and the 8.88 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings24 May 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.62 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings24 May 2027
No sign of nerves from Eric at 21 — 7.76
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Eric did not need any: 7.76, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market24 May 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Atlético Mineiro, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad24 May 2027
Mateo Cassierra 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.
Match22 May 2027
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Player ratings24 May 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces24 May 2027
The crowd has taken to Eric
At 21 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market4 Jan 2027
The offer from Académica for Alan Minda 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Renan Lodi 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.
Market4 Jan 2027
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Atlético Mineiro heard it as anything else.
Market4 Jan 2027
Louback has left for Caxias in a $280.0K deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market4 Jan 2027
A season away well spent by Robert Santos
14 games, 2 goals, and a squad option that has arrived without a fee attached. The interesting question at Atlético Mineiro now is not whether he plays but who he displaces.
Squad4 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Fausto Vera commits to Atlético Mineiro for another 3 years.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Atlético Mineiro are still strangers to each other
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Somebody has moved past him. It is not a dropping and it is worse than one, because a dropping is about a Saturday and this is about where he stands.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Dec 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Santiago Beltrán had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market28 Dec 2026
“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 River Plate, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market28 Dec 2026
The bid was some way short and River Plate did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets28 Dec 2026
Defensa y Justicia wanted more than $1.4M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Transfer targets28 Dec 2026
$780.0K on the table at Platense. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Market28 Dec 2026
The paperwork is done: Nahuel Brunet joins from Godoy Cruz in a deal worth $530.0K. Now comes the harder part.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Nahuel Brunet arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Nahuel Brunet has, at River Plate, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad28 Dec 2026
36 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad28 Dec 2026
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match16 Nov 2026
28 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Mauro Arambarri 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Santiago Beltrán and River Plate agree another 4 years.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Lautaro Rivero
“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.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Lucas Beltrán has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at River Plate 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.
Market16 Nov 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Mauro Arambarri’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Loan watch16 Nov 2026
11 appearances at Rosario Central and the goals have stopped going in. River Plate lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Fausto Vera has been promised minutes
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 Fausto Vera has written the date down.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at River Plate, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Oct 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.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Fausto Vera, and the manager let it.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Lautaro Rivero falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
River Plate are still strangers to each other
11 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Market26 Oct 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Thiago Almada’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout26 Oct 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.
Looking ahead26 Oct 2026
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Independiente Rivadavia in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Loan watch26 Oct 2026
4 shut-outs in 9 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Jeremías Ledesma has been having a lot of them.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Jonás Miszczuk knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at River Plate, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match17 Oct 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now River Plate have 7 straight wins of it.
Match19 Oct 2026
22 points and nobody above them. The word is not being said around the ground yet, and it is being thought in every seat.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Juan Cruz Meza is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match17 Oct 2026
The run at home goes on for River Plate
8 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Match17 Oct 2026
A 1‑0 win over Belgrano, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Ninety minutes of Thiago Almada at his very best
Marked 8.07. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at River Plate.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Gael Gutiérrez on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
When it matters, Matías Viña plays
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lautaro Rivero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Franco Tato in a row with a teammate
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.
The dugout12 Oct 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.
Market12 Oct 2026
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Mauro Arambarri signs something — a contract at River Plate or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager makes Fausto Vera a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at River Plate. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Squad12 Oct 2026
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
Squad12 Oct 2026
“I want to stay in the game when I stop, and I am not going to wait until I stop to prepare for it.” At 31 the badges have begun, and every manager in the division remembers doing the same.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Next up at home: Belgrano, who go into it in position 12. The kind of fixture a season is quietly built on or quietly loses its shape in.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Lucas Martínez Quarta plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match5 Oct 2026
River Plate are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 19 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match3 Oct 2026
Nobody wants to play River Plate right now
6 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Fausto Vera 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.
Match3 Oct 2026
River Plate keep winning on the road
3 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.
Match3 Oct 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lucas Beltrán. 1‑0 against Huracán, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lautaro Rivero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
A mark of 7.86, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad5 Oct 2026
International break empties River Plate
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match19 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Central Norte, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Market24 Aug 2026
Southampton come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and River Plate did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Jonás Miszczuk, 19, plays like he has been here for years — 7.84
A mark of 7.84 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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 8.12, and nobody on the pitch better.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
He is 19 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.
Match22 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Market24 Aug 2026
The name of Jonathan Spiff has come up in conversations River Plate were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Fausto Vera
“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.
Squad24 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.