Marked for Daniel Marmolejo
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Jul 2036
A knee injury of the worst kind for Ulises Yegros
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Newell's Old Boys lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match23 Jul 2036
Vélez are out and Newell's Old Boys go through, 3‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
The dugout28 Jul 2036
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Newell's Old Boys may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad28 Jul 2036
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market28 Jul 2036
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Newell's Old Boys is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market28 Jul 2036
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Boardroom28 Jul 2036
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Daniel Marmolejo has agreed terms with Flandria for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad28 Jul 2036
Words at Newell's Old Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Thiago Silvero 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.
Transfer targets28 Jul 2036
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Estudiantes have kept their man, and Newell's Old Boys go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market5 May 2036
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Newell's Old Boys can pretend not to have heard.
Market5 May 2036
Only the photograph left for Alan Torterolo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alan Torterolo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Newell's Old Boys the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad5 May 2036
Thiago Silvero falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Squad5 May 2036
Thiago Rojas 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.
Squad5 May 2036
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Player ratings5 May 2036
Ninety minutes of Gabriel Lopes at his very best
Marked 8.28. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Newell's Old Boys.
Squad5 May 2036
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Newell's Old Boys can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout5 May 2036
Thiago Rojas gets it from the manager
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad26 Nov 2035
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 43 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market26 Nov 2035
Only the photograph left for Benjamín Garay
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Benjamín Garay will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Newell's Old Boys the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad26 Nov 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Newell's Old Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Nov 2035
Words at Newell's Old Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Di Biasi 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.
The dugout26 Nov 2035
The manager makes an example of Agustín Griguol
“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.
The dugout26 Nov 2035
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.
Market26 Nov 2035
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Dylan Salvo’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout26 Nov 2035
Jorge Morinigo asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Loan watch26 Nov 2035
11 appearances at Sarmiento and the goals keep coming. Newell's Old Boys are watching this more closely than the borrowing club would like.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Loan watch5 Nov 2035
Gianluca Valdiviezo’s loan is measured in nothing happening
23 clean sheets from 41 appearances at Deportivo Armenio. 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.
Market5 Nov 2035
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Newell's Old Boys is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad5 Nov 2035
Tiago Peñalba 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.
Squad5 Nov 2035
Words at Newell's Old Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Di Biasi 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.
Squad5 Nov 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Ulises Yegros and Newell's Old Boys agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The dugout5 Nov 2035
Marco Oroná gets it from the manager
“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.
The dugout5 Nov 2035
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Newell's Old Boys, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Boardroom5 Nov 2035
A clause somebody insisted on years ago, in a negotiation nobody remembers, has just paid Newell's Old Boys $320.0K. Mauricio Cardillo left a long time ago; the paperwork stayed.
Loan watch5 Nov 2035
The goals keep arriving from Gonzalo Zelarayán’s exile
6 goals in 11 games at Defensa y Justicia — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Newell's Old Boys updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad1 Jan 2035
The knee: Miguel Lemos out for 45 days
45 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Deportivo Pereira lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market1 Jan 2035
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Deportivo Pereira they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market1 Jan 2035
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Market1 Jan 2035
“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 Deportivo Pereira, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market1 Jan 2035
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Deportivo Pereira can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Boardroom1 Jan 2035
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Jean Paul Angulo has agreed terms with Millonarios for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad1 Jan 2035
A move Cristhian Loor 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. Cristhian Loor is living that version at Deportivo Pereira, and it tends to show in the first month.
Transfer targets1 Jan 2035
$240.0K was the most the club would pay and Atletico Nacional were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Transfer targets1 Jan 2035
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Estudiantes have kept their man, and Deportivo Pereira go back to a list with one name crossed off it.