Banfield go through. The table said this team was good enough for months and the format does not care what the table said, which is the argument every eliminated club has had with itself since playoffs were invented.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Talleres 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 Talleres can pretend not to have heard.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Giovanni Baroni will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Talleres the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Talleres 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 Diego Valoyes was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 10 actions, 6.72, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
The dugout27 Nov 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 Luis Alberto Paz left the room before anybody could ask which.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Mauro Molina
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.
Augusto Schott 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.
“I watch every Talleres game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at América Mineiro runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
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 Valentín Depietri is on it.
Augusto Schott 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.
14 appearances away from home and 11 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Squad11 Oct 2027
8 new faces, and Talleres are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ulises Ortegoza trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Squad11 Oct 2027
Words at Talleres training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastián Flores 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.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Estudiantes waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Talleres is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
The offer from Amazonas for Sebastián Corradi 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Ariel Torres has just signed for Talleres, and for once the answer mattered.
The chase for Ariel Torres ended with $180.0K changing hands and All Boys out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
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 was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Talleres this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“I watch every Talleres game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Figueirense runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
10 shut-outs in 18 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Felipe Pontoni has been having a lot of them.
0‑3 to Central Córdoba SdE, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. All Boys will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
“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 All Boys, and it is not being withdrawn.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at All Boys is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
4 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.
Iván Zafarana 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.
In brief
SquadWords at All Boys training over how hard people work
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.32 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what All Boys can pretend not to have heard.
Iván Zafarana 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.