Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Cerrito will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Franco Casuriaga, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 8.26
A mark of 8.26 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.
1 for Santiago Viera, marked 7.88, 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.
Francisco Casanova 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santiago Viera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Ignacio Yepez in the middle of it, and Bella Vista unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Successful dribbles: 15. 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cerrito is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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.
Matías Kouyoumdjian 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.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Nobody at Cerrito 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tiago Simoni trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Francisco Casanova 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 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.
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 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.
Nothing is announced when this happens and everybody knows. He is a bigger part of the plan at Cerrito than he was a month ago, and the training ground worked that out before the team sheet said so.
“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 Cerrito, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Cerrito is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Cerrito 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.
6 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Cerrito are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
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 Luciano Batista is on it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Santiago Viera was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Matías Kouyoumdjian 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.
Nobody at Cerrito 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.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Potencia will make the call about Andrew Zamorano this week. Cerrito have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Francisco Casanova signs something — a contract at Cerrito or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.