Marked for Ramiro Hernandes
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Defensive actions: 31, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Lisandro López, 37, rolls back the years — 7.98
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.98 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Lucas Zelarayán 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.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
Graduation day at Belgrano
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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Santiago Longo falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Match6 Feb 2027
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Ramiro Hernandes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.08. 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.
The terraces8 Feb 2027
At 22 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.
Match6 Feb 2027
A 2‑0 win over Patronato, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market11 Jan 2027
Belgrano say no — this time
The offer from Kasimpasa for Lucas Passerini 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Belgrano may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market11 Jan 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Lucas Zelarayán 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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Adrián Sánchez falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Ramiro Hernandes commits to Belgrano for another 4 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad5 Oct 2026
There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Market5 Oct 2026
“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 Belgrano, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Ramiro Hernandes, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.67
A mark of 7.67 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 26. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Lucas Zelarayán 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.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Agustín Méndez is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Santiago Longo falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
21 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
141% of the income goes out in wages at Belgrano
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match9 Sep 2026
Argentinos Juniors ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Ramiro Hernandes at 21 — 9.20
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Ramiro Hernandes did not need any: 9.20, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Age has not caught Lisandro López yet — 8.94
At 37 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.94 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 28, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A defender's goal wins it for Belgrano — 7.68
1 for Federico Ricca, marked 7.68, 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Belgrano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Santiago Longo 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 terraces14 Sep 2026
At 22 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Estudiantes made Belgrano work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“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.