Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Platense know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Juan Pablo Goicochea 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.
Defensa y Justicia left with the points after a 2‑3 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad6 Sep 2038
Ramiro Pral 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.
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
16 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 7 matches without defeat is a foundation Platense did not have in the autumn.
Squad30 Aug 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Maximiliano Amarfil 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.
Marked 8.93. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Platense.
Player ratings30 Aug 2038
Ramiro Pral was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.64. 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.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 11 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Platense will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Platense is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Marked 8.50 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 45 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 90th minute. Lanús will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Two goals and a mark of 8.76 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Platense this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Aug 2038
Words at Platense training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramiro Pral 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.
Nobody at Platense 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Platense know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.