Marked for Gerónimo Blanco
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces25 Jan 2027
Supporters organise against the River Plate board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad25 Jan 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. River Plate will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Carlos Rodríguez 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Felipe Chiappini 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 dugout25 Jan 2027
“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 dugout25 Jan 2027
Inti López 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.
Squad25 Jan 2027
He trains hard, says the right things and goes home to an empty flat. Nobody at River Plate has done anything wrong, which is exactly what makes it so difficult to fix.
The dugout25 Jan 2027
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Damián Frascarelli is on it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Mauricio Nievas 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. Mauricio Nievas has, at River Plate, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Market11 Jan 2027
“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.
Market11 Jan 2027
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Cerro moved on, Gerónimo Blanco reports back to River Plate, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Market11 Jan 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad11 Jan 2027
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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Brian Ferrarés and River Plate agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The clock did what Wanderers would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Transfer targets11 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.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad14 Dec 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.
Transfer targets14 Dec 2026
$36.0K was the most the club would pay and Juventud were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Yonatan Irrazábal, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santiago Romero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad14 Dec 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gonzalo Pulido and River Plate agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets14 Dec 2026
A loan move for Miguel Terceros is in the works
River Plate have made the call to Santos. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Transfer targets14 Dec 2026
Olimpia have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
Inti López 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.
The dugout14 Dec 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.