Marked for Joaquín Alvear
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Union La Calera this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Camilo Moya gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Matías Ríos 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Sep 2026
Francisco Pozzo 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.
Match5 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Matías Ríos 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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Union La Calera have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Market7 Sep 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad17 Aug 2026
Nicolás Avellaneda 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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The terraces17 Aug 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Camilo Moya gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Marked 7.38. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.