“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Atenas can pretend not to have heard.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Atenas have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Atenas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Public backing, and the sort that costs a manager something if it turns out to be wrong. Lautaro Vázquez has been told in front of everybody that the shirt is his.
He came through the session, took part in everything and finished it smiling. Atenas will not rush him, and he will spend the next fortnight trying to rush them.
49 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.