Marked for Bruno Arady
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market11 Jan 2027
Atenas come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Nacional did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad11 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 Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market11 Jan 2027
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.
Squad11 Jan 2027
When it matters, Luis Mejía plays
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.
Market11 Jan 2027
The Bruno Arady talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Nacional know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad11 Jan 2027
The penny has dropped for Juan Pintado
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Nacional the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad28 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market28 Dec 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Nacional have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Nacional training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Agustín Rogel 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match9 Dec 2026
Wanderers ended it 1‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Agustín dos Santos, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.92
A mark of 7.92 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Nico López, 33, rolls back the years — 8.19
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.19 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad14 Dec 2026
A move Adriano Freitas 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. Adriano Freitas is living that version at Nacional, and it tends to show in the first month.
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.
Match9 Dec 2026
The wait goes on for Nacional
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market14 Dec 2026
The fee is $380.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Deportivo Maldonado drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad14 Dec 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Nicolás Rodríguez 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Dec 2026
Nacional say no — this time
The offer from Atenas for Federico Bonilla 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.
Boardroom7 Dec 2026
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Nicolás Rodríguez 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match26 Aug 2026
Nacional through in the cup
A 2‑1 win over Cerrito, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match26 Aug 2026
Exequiel Mereles wins it after the whistle should have gone
99 minutes played. Exequiel Mereles found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Cerrito went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.32 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 27. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 Aug 2026
The name of Gonzalo Carneiro has come up in conversations Nacional were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Match29 Aug 2026
Still nobody has beaten Nacional
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nicolás Rodríguez 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.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Luciano Boggio at his very best
Marked 9.00. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Nacional.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at Nacional training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mauricio Vera 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match19 Aug 2026
Nacional march on in the cup
Tacuarembo are out and Nacional go through, 1‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 32. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Aug 2026
Exequiel Mereles wins it after the whistle should have gone
96 minutes played. Exequiel Mereles found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Tacuarembo went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Exequiel Mereles at 20 — 9.29
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Exequiel Mereles did not need any: 9.29, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Paolo Calione could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.34
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.34, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 27, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nacional this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Nicolás Rodríguez 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.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Luis Mejía 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.