The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Francisco Sciarini has just signed for Almería, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Words at Almería training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Óscar De Marcos 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.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Bologna have kept their man, and Almería go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Newell's Old Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Solari 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.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Newell's Old Boys can pretend not to have heard.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. David Sotelo has agreed terms with Lanús for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Newell's Old Boys they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Santiago Solari 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Walter Núñez 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Matías Cóccaro has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Fabián Noguera has his answer from Newell's Old Boys; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Newell's Old Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Francisco Sciarini is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Luciano Cingolani has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Newell's Old Boys have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.25, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Rodrigo Herrera was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.03. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
In brief
SquadIan Glavinovich falls out with a teammate over standards
Santiago Solari 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.
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 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 Bautista González left the room before anybody could ask which.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Estudiantes next, and one man in the Newell's Old Boys dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
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 Newell's Old Boys that is a harder question to answer.