Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Pro Vercelli waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Deportivo Riestra is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Riestra have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Juan Cruz Randazzo 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.
Add another name to the list: Virtus Entella have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Jorge Luque. The answer from Deportivo Riestra has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Obredor was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Deportivo Riestra, another week without a signature from Mariano Bracamonte.
They sit in position 4 and they will be waiting. Away form is where a season shows its true character, and this side has a point to make about its own.
The offer from Almería for Alexander Díaz 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Riestra have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johnson Nsumoh 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.
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
“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 The request is on a desk at Deportivo Riestra, and it is not being withdrawn.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Deportivo Riestra have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The offer from Racing for Jorge Luque 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.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mariano Bracamonte and Deportivo Riestra agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Juan Cruz Randazzo 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Sport Recife have kept their man, and Deportivo Riestra go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The name of Joaquín Bonnin has come up in conversations Deportivo Riestra were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Argentinos Juniors 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.
In brief
The dugoutAntony Alonso knocks on the manager’s door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Deportivo Riestra they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Johnson Nsumoh 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 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.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room and never have. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and at Deportivo Riestra that is a harder question to answer.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Lorenzo Corral has written the date down.
In brief
The terracesSupporters make their feelings known about Alexander Díaz
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Rodrigo Gallo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Deportivo Riestra the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Deportivo Riestra, and both men came out saying it was fine.
In brief
MarketThe clock does Facundo Miño’s negotiating for him
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Deportivo Riestra they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Deportivo Riestra told Mariano Bracamonte something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Nicolás Sansotre is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
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.
The captaincy has been taken off Pedro Ramírez. Deportivo Riestra will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
2 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Deportivo Riestra could ask drops and the wages Mariano Bracamonte can ask rise.
Facundo Miño has done the arithmetic and does not like the answer. Nothing corrodes a squad faster, and no club has ever solved it by explaining the wage structure to a footballer.
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.
Successful dribbles: 17. 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.
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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
The dugoutAntony Alonso knocks on the manager’s door