Marked for Matías Schulz
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets18 Jan 2027
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. 2 de Mayo have done the hard part with Gimnasia y Esgrima, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad18 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at 2 de Mayo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at 2 de Mayo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Elías Alfonso 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The deal with Sportivo Luqueno is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Belgrano keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Squad11 Jan 2027
At 21 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Alberto Contrera and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Time is catching up with José Ramírez
Everybody at 2 de Mayo saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 35 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
2 de Mayo asked and Talleres said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Transfer targets11 Jan 2027
San Lorenzo have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
Squad11 Jan 2027
The formation has left Matías Schulz behind
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. 2 de Mayo will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
The dugout11 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Germán Núñez, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
The deal with Unión de Santa Fe is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Words exchanged at 2 de Mayo
Alberto Contrera 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.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
2 de Mayo asked and General Caballero JLM said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Marcelo Acosta 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
2 de Mayo are still strangers to each other
7 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.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
A loan enquiry to Rosario Central: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market4 Jan 2027
The offer from River Plate for Lautaro Vargas 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.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Everything agreed with Tigre, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Unión de Santa Fe had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
Market4 Jan 2027
The name of Marcelo Estigarribia has come up in conversations Unión de Santa Fe were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Eric Ramírez 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Leandro Lozano was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
Unión de Santa Fe asked and Bragantino said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad4 Jan 2027
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Transfer targets4 Jan 2027
A loan move for Maycon is in the works
Unión de Santa Fe have made the call to Atlético Mineiro. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market14 Dec 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets14 Dec 2026
Unión de Santa Fe and Defensores have settled on $78.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A move Zahir Ibarra 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. Zahir Ibarra is living that version at Unión de Santa Fe, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market14 Dec 2026
Mateo Albornoz has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Unión de Santa Fe they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Matías Schulz is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Unión de Santa Fe training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lautaro Vargas 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Bruno Pittón 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.
Transfer targets14 Dec 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. San Telmo have kept their man, and Unión de Santa Fe go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Lautaro Vargas
“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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.90, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
No sign of nerves from Lautaro Vargas at 21 — 8.17
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Lautaro Vargas did not need any: 8.17, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Franco Fragapane, 33, rolls back the years — 7.95
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.95 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Matías Schulz is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Match26 Sep 2026
7 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Unión de Santa Fe and Newell's Old Boys in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Mauro Pittón 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.
Boardroom28 Sep 2026
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Lucas Pedraza has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Unión de Santa Fe have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Maizon Rodríguez 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.