Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
“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 The request is on a desk at Godoy Cruz, and it is not being withdrawn.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.” Godoy Cruz have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Federico Mazur will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Godoy Cruz the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Lucas Arce 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.95 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Godoy Cruz pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 27 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Federico Mazur will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Godoy Cruz the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 24 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Lucas Arce 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Godoy Cruz 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 Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 9.49 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Chacarita Juniors defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 34 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Lucas Arce 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.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 20 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Lucas Arce 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.
Marked 8.57 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.91 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Marked 8.31 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
It needed Tomás Pozzo to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Agropecuario Argentino, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.69 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Marked 8.07 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.69 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Lucas Arce 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Godoy Cruz can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Godoy Cruz this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bautista Carboni is 20, and Godoy Cruz have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Lucas Arce 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.
Federico Mazur is 33 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
Lucas Arce 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.
Lucas Arce 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.
Marked 8.61 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Lucas Arce 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.
Marked 9.33 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Godoy Cruz have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
In brief
Player ratingsThe one thing Martín Pino could not do