132 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Banfield lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Banfield is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
The deal with Bologna is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
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.
Facundo Sanguinetti 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 60 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Banfield this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 May 2028
Words at Banfield training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lisandro Piñero 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Banfield is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Two goals and a mark of 8.16 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
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.
Player ratings20 Mar 2028
Lisandro Piñero, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.93
A mark of 7.93 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
He is 20, he is averaging 7.01, and older professionals have started passing to him in the difficult minutes. That last part is the real scouting report.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Banfield will quote 16 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Diego 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.
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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Benjamín Flores is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Santi has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Banfield, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Banfield is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Diego 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.
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.
Nobody at Banfield 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.
7 clean sheets from 29 appearances at Vélez. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.