Marked for Daniel Martínez
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout28 Feb 2028
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market28 Feb 2028
Melvin Gómez 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 Rocha can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 28. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Words exchanged at Rocha
Lukas González 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.
Match26 Feb 2028
Still nobody has beaten Rocha
The unbeaten run reaches 6. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad28 Feb 2028
A row about effort at Rocha
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Robledo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout28 Feb 2028
“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.
Match26 Feb 2028
Late, late show earns Rocha a point
Minute 89, against Renegades, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
Match26 Feb 2028
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
In brief
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The dugout
The view from the dugout
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The dugout
Tomás Jakos asks for a word with the manager
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Squad
“I want to play”: Daniel Martínez speaks
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market7 Feb 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 The request is on a desk at Rocha, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Feb 2028
A falling-out at Rocha
Maicol Rodríguez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad7 Feb 2028
A row about effort at Rocha
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Robledo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Maximiliano Giménez, and the manager let it.
Market7 Feb 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Rocha, another week without a signature from Jonathan Rodríguez.
Squad7 Feb 2028
7 new faces, and Rocha 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.
Boardroom7 Feb 2028
Belts tighten at Rocha
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
Squad7 Feb 2028
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Rocha know which stage they are at.
The dugout7 Feb 2028
Nobody at Rocha 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Jan 2028
Words exchanged at Rocha
Maicol Rodríguez 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.
Squad31 Jan 2028
A row about effort at Rocha
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Robledo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market31 Jan 2028
A stepping stone, not a home, for Daniel Martínez
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Rocha were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
The dugout31 Jan 2028
“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 dugout31 Jan 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Mathías Callero trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market31 Jan 2028
The name of Agustín Acosta keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Rocha say nothing, which says plenty.