Marked for Ulises Sánchez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Sep 2026
The knee: Juan Franco out for 26 days
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market14 Sep 2026
Diego Mondino hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
Match12 Sep 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Gimnasia y Esgrima are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Ulises Sánchez 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 dugout14 Sep 2026
Matías Muñoz gets it from the manager
“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.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Miguel Ángel Rojas has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market14 Sep 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Juampi has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Match12 Sep 2026
0‑1 to Lanús, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad7 Sep 2026
The knee: Juan Franco out for 33 days
33 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market7 Sep 2026
The bid was some way short and Gimnasia y Esgrima did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tomás O'Connor 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ulises Sánchez 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 dugout7 Sep 2026
“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.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
Ismael Cortez has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima 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.
The dugout7 Sep 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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead7 Sep 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Ezequiel Muñoz’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Gimnasia y Esgrima needing him to play as if none of it matters.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match19 Aug 2026
A 2‑0 win over Defensa y Justicia, 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
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Carrarese had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ezequiel Muñoz 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 terraces24 Aug 2026
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Julián Moya has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The dugout24 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Agustín Módica
“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.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A performance of 8.06 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.00, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Pescara for Agustín Módica 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 30. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ezequiel Muñoz and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Match15 Aug 2026
Instituto left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Tomás O'Connor
“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 dugout17 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Juan Otero left the room before anybody could ask which.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Gimnasia y Esgrima training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Tobías Cervera 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 dugout17 Aug 2026
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.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
The plan did not have a place for Agustín Módica
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Aug 2026
Matías Vargas has left for Espanyol in a $13.5M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
The terraces10 Aug 2026
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Matías Vargas was one of the reasons people came, and $13.5M does not replace that by itself.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer from Hapoel Kiryat Shmona for Ángel Castañares 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ulises Sánchez and Gimnasia y Esgrima agree another 4 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Ezequiel Muñoz 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Gimnasia y Esgrima have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Gabriel Domínguez has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Matías Muñoz 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 41. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad3 Aug 2026
97 appearances across 13 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Gimnasia y Esgrima know what they have.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Market3 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: Espanyol have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matías Vargas. The answer from Gimnasia y Esgrima has not changed — yet.
Market3 Aug 2026
Valletta come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Gimnasia y Esgrima did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Aug 2026
Matías Vargas 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 Gimnasia y Esgrima hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Matías Vargas and Gimnasia y Esgrima agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
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 Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match1 Aug 2026
Tomás Ortíz scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑3 to Boca Juniors, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.