Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Esgrima has to find a result from somewhere.
Day 11 of the vacancy. Candidates have been priced, sounded out and quietly ruled out — and the caretaker’s win ratio is becoming an argument all by itself.
A point taken on 93 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Gimnasia y Esgrima has been clear about where Agustín Sciaroni stands, which is more than many ever get.
It needed Ángel Castañares to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Estudiantes, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
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 Facundo Lencioni is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Daniel Bianchi has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“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 The request is on a desk at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
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 Tomás O'Connor is on it.
Every squad is half players the manager chose and half players he inherited. Tomás O'Connor was chosen, the man who chose him has gone, and he starts again from nothing under the next one.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Tomás O'Connor’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market8 Jan 2029
The window shut and Germán Guiffrey is still in the building
Gimnasia y Esgrima spent a month trying to move him and nobody rang back. He trains with a squad that has told him where he stands, and both sides start counting down to the next one.
A year in and the city has not opened up, the language has not come, and lunch is eaten alone more often than anybody at Gimnasia y Esgrima would admit. It shows on Saturdays.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Gimnasia y Esgrima will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Banfield have kept their man, and Gimnasia y Esgrima go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Tomás O'Connor's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Lencioni 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. River Plate have kept their man, and Gimnasia y Esgrima go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Gimnasia y Esgrima told Germán Guiffrey something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
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.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Gimnasia y Esgrima. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
In brief
SquadThe training reports on Enzo Ávalos are not good
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Aquiles Paoli was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Gimnasia y Esgrima will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
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 Tomás O'Connor is on it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Saavedra 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.
Fermín Antonini 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Saavedra 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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Tomás O'Connor is on it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aquiles Paoli trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Saavedra 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.
Fermín Antonini 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.
Position 14 and 11 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
0‑2 to Vélez, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Daniel Bianchi to a room that had heard them before.
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima 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.
Successful dribbles: 12. 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.
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
8 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.
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 Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Esgrima has to find a result from somewhere.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Julián Ceballos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gimnasia y Esgrima the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Pedro Baster 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. Franco Saavedra 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
1 for Ismael Cortez, marked 7.96, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
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.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Leandro Ciccolini and Gimnasia y Esgrima agree another 2 years.
Fermín Antonini 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.
A point taken on 93 minutes is worth exactly one point and considerably more than that to a dressing room. This side does not stop, which is a reputation worth more than the result.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Franco Saavedra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ismael Cortez signs something — a contract at Gimnasia y Esgrima or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Saavedra 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.
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 Santiago Rodríguez is on it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Facundo Lencioni signs something — a contract at Gimnasia y Esgrima or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Independiente next, and one man in the Gimnasia y Esgrima dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The words a physio says slowly. 22 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Pedro Baster 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.
$53.0K was the most the club would pay and Ferro Carril Oeste 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.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
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 Santiago Rodríguez is on it.
43 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Blas Armoa 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.
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.
Somebody watched every match in the division at the weekend and decided he was the best thing in any of them. A small honour, and most careers end without one.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Diego Mondino trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gimnasia y Esgrima know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The words a physio says slowly. 50 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Platense will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Gimnasia y Esgrima were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Blas Armoa 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.
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 Santiago Rodríguez is on it.
78 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
7 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
Santiago Roggero 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.
The dugout17 Apr 2028
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 Daniel Bianchi left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima 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.
85 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gimnasia y Esgrima 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 Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
106 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Pedro Baster 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.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
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 Daniel Bianchi left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima 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.
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Facundo Lencioni signs something — a contract at Gimnasia y Esgrima or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 113 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolás Romano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gimnasia y Esgrima the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
120 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Blas Armoa had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Talleres were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
Matías Muñoz 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 demotion a club never announces and a dressing room always notices. Ezequiel Muñoz is further from the side than he was, and the reason will not be given until he asks.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima 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.
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Tomás O'Connor has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
17 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Santiago Roggero 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 players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Daniel Bianchi could afford to be generous.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Blas Armoa. 1‑0 against Boca Juniors, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Fermín Antonini 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 respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
The words a physio says slowly. 54 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Raúl Morales is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Noah Marino is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Gabriel Marino is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
A date was given and it came and went. Nobody upstairs will call it a broken promise, and nobody downstairs will call it anything else for a long time.
The words a physio says slowly. 75 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Gimnasia y Esgrima were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
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.
Matías Muñoz 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 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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ismael Cortez signs something — a contract at Gimnasia y Esgrima or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Gimnasia y Esgrima would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.