A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Roberto Bianchi has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
“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 The request is on a desk at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ángel Castañares and Gimnasia y Esgrima agree another 4 years.
Benjamín Borruel 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.
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 Facundo Lencioni is on it.
In brief
The dugoutFelipe San Juan loses the manager who believed in him
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nahuel Barboza will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gimnasia y Esgrima the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Estudiantes held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Gimnasia y Esgrima answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Tomás O'Connor 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.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Gimnasia y Esgrima and Lanús, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
“I watch every Gimnasia y Esgrima game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Newell's Old Boys runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Juan Álvarez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gimnasia y Esgrima the goodbyes have quietly begun.
0‑2 to Platense, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout30 Aug 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑2 defeat, delivered by Roberto Bianchi to a room that had heard them before.
10 clean sheets from 22 appearances at Vancouver Whitecaps. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.
The name of Franco Saavedra has come up in conversations Gimnasia y Esgrima were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Gimnasia y Esgrima offered $170.0K; Defensores Unidos said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
9 combined actions and 6.56. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Juan Álvarez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gimnasia y Esgrima the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Ulises Sánchez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matías Muñoz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
The dugout15 Mar 2027
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 1‑4 Roberto Bianchi left the room before anybody could ask which.
32 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gimnasia y Esgrima they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ulises Sánchez 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 Franco Saavedra is on it.
Numbers do not stay secret in a dressing room. He is not asking for more than he is worth; he is asking why somebody beside him is worth more, and Gimnasia y Esgrima have no good answer.