Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Argentinos Juniors waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Defensa y Justicia is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
“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 The request is on a desk at Defensa y Justicia, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Defensa y Justicia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
Add another name to the list: Sarmiento have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Dylan Almada. The answer from Defensa y Justicia has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ezequiel Cannavo 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 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.
4 clean sheets from 14 appearances at Brown de Adrogué. 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.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Lucas Ríos has written the date down.
César Pérez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ezequiel Cannavo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Defensa y Justicia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Independiente next, and one man in the Defensa y Justicia dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Defensa y Justicia will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 79 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Defensa y Justicia people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Deportivo Laferrere had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Defensa y Justicia can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets3 Jul 2028
$690.0K settles it between the clubs for Lucas Meuli
Unión de Santa Fe have accepted the money. What Defensa y Justicia do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Lazio have kept their man, and Defensa y Justicia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad3 Jul 2028
David Barbona 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Defensa y Justicia have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Defensa y Justicia will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Juan Manuel Gutiérrez 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 had been thinking. Ezequiel Cannavo 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Juan Manuel Gutiérrez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
One weekend, judged against everybody else's. Daniel Barrea has come out on top of it, and for most footballers a weekly award is the only silverware a career ever produces.
Newell's Old Boys next, and one man in the Defensa y Justicia dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Defensa y Justicia know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.