Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Fernando Román will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Defensa y Justicia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” César Pérez and Defensa y Justicia agree another 5 years.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Defensa y Justicia 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 Damián Fernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 12 combined actions and a mark of 6.81, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Defensa y Justicia can pretend not to have heard.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Defensa y Justicia 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 Defensa y Justicia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Defensa y Justicia told Aarón Molinas something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Agustín Hausch, and the manager let it.
Squad2 Nov 2026
A place in the month's best eleven for Aarón Molinas
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Aarón Molinas has come out of that comparison in the side, and Defensa y Justicia have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Defensa y Justicia is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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 Defensa y Justicia, and it is not being withdrawn.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Darío Cáceres has agreed terms with Brown de Adrogué for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Juan Manuel Gutiérrez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Damián Fernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Defensa y Justicia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.88 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.45 for the rest of it.
At 19 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.
Juan Manuel Gutiérrez 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.
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.
21 combined actions and 6.98. 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.
“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 Defensa y Justicia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Defensa y Justicia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Emiliano Cantero is 18, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damián Fernández 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lucas Souto and Defensa y Justicia agree another 4 years.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
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.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Samuel Lucero is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Damián Fernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Sergio Arias after 1‑2, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Damián Fernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Darío Cáceres’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Defensa y Justicia needing him to play as if none of it matters.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Defensa y Justicia they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damián Fernández 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Defensa y Justicia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Lautaro Amadé and Defensa y Justicia agree another 3 years.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Julián López trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at Defensa y Justicia 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lautaro Amadé will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Defensa y Justicia the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lautaro Amadé has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Juan Manuel Gutiérrez 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Éver Banega 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.
Lanús will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. José Canale has pre-agreed a move to Defensa y Justicia, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Matías Borgogno trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
1 for Éver Banega, marked 7.67, 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.
Juan Manuel Gutiérrez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Éver Banega 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Éver Banega and Defensa y Justicia agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Damián Fernández 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 Defensa y Justicia, another week without a signature from Aarón Molinas.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
In brief
SquadÉver Banega retires from international football
The dugoutAarón Molinas knocks on the manager’s door