Marked for Emanuel Quiroga
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market10 Jul 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Central Norte, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad10 Jul 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Central Norte this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom10 Jul 2028
195% of the income goes out in wages at Central Norte
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Player ratings10 Jul 2028
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.54, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings10 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad10 Jul 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Martín Lucero and Central Norte agree another 4 years.
Market10 Jul 2028
A conversation is coming this week. Central Norte will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad10 Jul 2028
Words at Central Norte training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Emanuel Quiroga 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.
Match8 Jul 2028
A 1‑1 draw with Deportivo Riestra leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad3 Jul 2028
There were 8 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings3 Jul 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.70 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market3 Jul 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Central Norte can pretend not to have heard.
Match1 Jul 2028
A 3‑2 win over Temperley, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings3 Jul 2028
Marked 8.76 — 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.
Match1 Jul 2028
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Francisco Borda in the middle of it, and Temperley unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Joaquín Mateo 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.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Rodrigo Acuña 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.
Boardroom3 Jul 2028
4 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market16 Aug 2027
Ramiro Costa hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Central Norte can pretend not to have heard.
Squad16 Aug 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 Central Norte this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Words at Central Norte training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramiro Costa 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.
Match14 Aug 2027
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
A performance of 8.95 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad16 Aug 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Agustín Aleo, and the manager let it.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Fabricio Hass lets one through his hands
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
Shots: 9. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Player ratings16 Aug 2027
5.53 on the card. Some afternoons a footballer looks like a man who has only just been introduced to the game, and this was one of them.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match6 Mar 2027
10 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.
Market8 Mar 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
The Central Norte board want somebody sold
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Fabricio Hass and Central Norte agree another 4 years.
Squad8 Mar 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 Central Norte this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Matías Villarreal 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.
Match6 Mar 2027
1‑2 to Temperley, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Elías Calderón, and the manager let it.
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.