The words a physio says slowly. 113 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“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 The request is on a desk at Sarmiento, and it is not being withdrawn.
Carlos Villalba and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Elián Giménez 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.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad12 Feb 2029
6 new faces, and Sarmiento are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Nobody at Sarmiento 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 136 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Bruno Castro will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sarmiento the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sarmiento this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Elián Giménez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 dugout22 Jan 2029
The manager has not finished forgetting Fernando Duré's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sarmiento, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Federico Paradela is on it.
145 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sarmiento lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“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 Sarmiento, and it is not being withdrawn.
Elián Giménez 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.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sarmiento, another week without a signature from Elián Giménez.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Facundo Alaggia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sarmiento, and both men came out saying it was fine.
22 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sarmiento lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Franco Calderón will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sarmiento the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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.
Fernando Duré 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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Manuel Mónaco trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Federico Paradela is on it.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
3 goals in 21 games at Platense — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Sarmiento updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
30 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sarmiento lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Sarmiento have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Cristian Zabala was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The paperwork is done long before the player is. Thiago González has agreed terms to come here when his current deal runs out, which means Sarmiento have spent a summer's transfer budget on a phone call.
Carlos Villalba 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.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sarmiento has been clear about where Thyago Ayala stands, which is more than many ever get.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Fabricio Bedmar is living that version at Sarmiento, and it tends to show in the first month.
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Franco Calderón has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Sarmiento has been clear about where Jhon Renteria stands, which is more than many ever get.