Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Axel Pandiani was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Maximiliano Caetano 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.
Every club pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time it has been tried.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Alvaro Rodriguez on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Miramar Misiones can pretend not to have heard.
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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emiliano Saliadarre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Miramar Misiones this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 111 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Cristo Lozada Echenique 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.
16 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Miramar Misiones lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Successful dribbles: 24. 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.
Cristo Lozada Echenique 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.
Nobody at Miramar Misiones 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.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Emiliano Saliadarre was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It finished 2‑0, and it was Bruno Abbate’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Miramar Misiones.
Player ratings8 Mar 2032
Bruno Abbate was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.00. 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.
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.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Alvaro Rodriguez on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
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.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Colon in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
25 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Miramar Misiones lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Miramar Misiones will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
1‑5 against Cerro Largo, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Successful dribbles: 25. 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.
Santiago Corbo 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. 6 goals between Miramar Misiones and Cerro Largo, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
In brief
BoardroomNobody left the Miramar Misiones dressing room in a hurry
It is a specific kind of quiet, a ground watching a winning position dissolve. La Luz kept coming because nothing stopped them, and Miramar Misiones will be asked about the last half hour all week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.86 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emiliano Saliadarre 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.
Bruno Serrón 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The dugout19 May 2031
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Alvaro Rodriguez chose the glass-half-full version of 2‑2; the supporters left with the other one.
In brief
The dugoutÁlex de Freitas has become a man the manager trusts