Marked for Leandro Díaz
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Jun 2027
There were 10 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.
Market14 Jun 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Danubio people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market14 Jun 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Danubio, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Transfer targets14 Jun 2027
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: another club keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Market14 Jun 2027
Plaza Colonia pay $1.0M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad14 Jun 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Santiago Acosta commits to Danubio for another 4 years.
Squad14 Jun 2027
Patricio Medina gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Patricio Medina has just signed for Danubio, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad14 Jun 2027
A row about effort at Danubio
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iván Rossi was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 May 2027
105 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Penarol lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Match19 May 2027
The small margins put Penarol out
Out, 0‑0 to La Luz, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
Squad24 May 2027
1 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Player ratings24 May 2027
Marked 8.31 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market24 May 2027
“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 Penarol, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match22 May 2027
Whatever happens, Penarol do not lose
9 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match22 May 2027
Penarol make home a hard place to visit
11 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad24 May 2027
A season average of 7.05 at an age when most of his year group are still in the youth team. Penarol know what they have, and so, by now, does everybody else.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Penarol training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nahuel Herrera 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
Uneasy
Squad21 Dec 2026
26 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Penarol lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 31 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
Matías Arezo: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Penarol have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market21 Dec 2026
The bid was some way short and Penarol did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A move Christian Tabó 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. Christian Tabó is living that version at Penarol, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market21 Dec 2026
The chase for Santiago Ramírez ended with $550.0K changing hands and Deportivo Maldonado out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Boardroom21 Dec 2026
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Leandro Díaz has agreed terms with Boston River for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Transfer targets21 Dec 2026
Deportivo Maldonado wanted more than $650.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad21 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 Penarol this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 42. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad31 Aug 2026
2 kept out from twelve yards, and a stadium that will describe each of them for twenty years. A goalkeeper needs one night like this in a career, and this was it.
Match26 Aug 2026
Penarol through in the cup
A 2‑2 win over Oriental, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.73 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market31 Aug 2026
Palermo come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Penarol did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Marked 7.62 at 19, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Market31 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matías González will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Penarol the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad31 Aug 2026
16 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Match29 Aug 2026
Still nobody has beaten Penarol
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.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match19 Aug 2026
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Gonzalo Gelini obliged against Albion. 1‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Penarol.
Match19 Aug 2026
Penarol win it in stoppage time
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 117th minute. Albion will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.64, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
No sign of nerves from Gonzalo Gelini at 19 — 8.02
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Gonzalo Gelini did not need any: 8.02, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Match22 Aug 2026
Penarol cannot stop winning
5 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Market24 Aug 2026
Hapoel Acre come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Penarol did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market24 Aug 2026
Add another name to the list: St. Pauli have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Matías Arezo. The answer from Penarol has not changed — yet.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A falling-out at Penarol
Abel Hernández and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.