Marked for Mariano Bracamonte
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market12 Oct 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mariano Bracamonte will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Deportivo Riestra the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Cristian Paz 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 Deportivo Riestra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
The manager makes an example of Ignacio Arce
“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.
Match10 Oct 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout12 Oct 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 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Pablo Quiroga to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
Antony Alonso has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Deportivo Riestra 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.
Market12 Oct 2026
3 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Deportivo Riestra money.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Sep 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Deportivo Riestra is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad14 Sep 2026
35 days out for Santino Coppola after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Deportivo Riestra will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad14 Sep 2026
A one-man rearguard from Ignacio Arce
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Mariano Bracamonte 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Nicolás Benegas did the work nobody counts — 6.78
11 combined actions and 6.78. 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Deportivo Riestra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pedro Ramírez 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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad24 Aug 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Fabricio Ventresca, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.45
A mark of 8.45 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Market24 Aug 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 Deportivo Riestra, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match22 Aug 2026
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Mariano Bracamonte 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Cristian Paz 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Deportivo Riestra training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Pedro Ramírez 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 terraces24 Aug 2026
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market17 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mariano Bracamonte will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Deportivo Riestra the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Cristian Paz 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 Deportivo Riestra this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Pedro Ramírez 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.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Mariano Bracamonte, and the manager let it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 7.83 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Deportivo Riestra had the best player on the pitch.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Pablo Quiroga on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 13. 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.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
Ninety specific minutes wanted a different sort of player, and the manager picked one. He is not out of form and he is not in the side, and both are true.