Marked for Fausto Grunullú
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market25 Dec 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Boston River, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market25 Dec 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Fausto Grunullú will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Boston River the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Agustín Amado 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
Words at Boston River training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuel Beltrán 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.
Squad25 Dec 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Andrew Teuten and Boston River agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad25 Dec 2028
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad11 Dec 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Bruno Rodriguez
23 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Boston River lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market11 Dec 2028
“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 Dec 2028
Agustín Amado 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 Dec 2028
Words at Boston River training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuel Beltrán 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.
Squad11 Dec 2028
“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.
Market11 Dec 2028
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Boston River will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad3 Jul 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Boston River may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings3 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 29. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market3 Jul 2028
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Agustín Amado 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
A move Sorin Ziane would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Sorin Ziane is living that version at Boston River, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Sorin Ziane is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 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.
Player ratings3 Jul 2028
Defensive actions: 22, 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 ratings3 Jul 2028
Andrés Romero was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.57. 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.
Match1 Jul 2028
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Andrés Romero. 2‑0 against River Plate, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings19 Jun 2028
Successful dribbles: 26. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Market19 Jun 2028
Danubio come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Boston River did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Emanuel Beltrán 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.
Match17 Jun 2028
0‑2 to Fenix, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad19 Jun 2028
The manager makes an example of Emanuel Beltrán
“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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at Boston River training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Ignacio González 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.
Squad19 Jun 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Adriano Freitas commits to Boston River for another 3 years.
Player ratings19 Jun 2028
6 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Player ratings19 Jun 2028
5.48 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Jun 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Boston River can pretend not to have heard.
Market12 Jun 2028
The offer from Fenix for Juan Ignacio González 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.
The terraces12 Jun 2028
Boston River sell a favourite for $1.9M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Martín Fernández was one of the reasons people came, and $1.9M does not replace that by itself.
Squad12 Jun 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Boston River may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad12 Jun 2028
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Bautista Franco y Massa has just signed for Boston River, and for once the answer mattered.
Market12 Jun 2028
Martín Fernández has left for Fenix in a $1.9M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Match10 Jun 2028
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad12 Jun 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Boston River this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market12 Jun 2028
The paperwork is done: Andrés Gigena joins from Artigas in a deal worth $150.0K. Now comes the harder part.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Jan 2028
“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.
Market24 Jan 2028
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Leandro Suhr 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.