Anthony Sosa 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.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Colon are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
“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 The request is on a desk at Colon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Anthony Sosa 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Manuel Valle has just signed for Colon, and for once the answer mattered.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Maximiliano Sanchez 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Rodrigo Alvarez 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 academy exists for exactly this morning. Kevin Gonzalez has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
“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 The request is on a desk at Colon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Anthony Sosa 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.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nacional have kept their man, and Colon go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Agustín Romero was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Colon, another week without a signature from Martín Coirolo.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Colon, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Colon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Pablo Rios is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Fernando Diaz 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. Kevin Ugarte 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.
Nobody has barred the club from spending; it simply has nothing to spend that it has not first raised. Every incoming name comes with an outgoing one attached.
In brief
The dugoutMateo Miglino knocks on the manager’s door
SquadQuestions about Agustín Mora on the training pitch
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Colon can pretend not to have heard.
Anthony Sosa 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.
Colon asked and Penarol said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Colon are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Colon can pretend not to have heard.
Anthony Sosa 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 Mateo Miglino trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Colon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramiro Quintana 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.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Colon can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
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.
Fernando Magaldi is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“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 Colon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Aidas Mikoliunas will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Colon the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Anthony Sosa 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Colon, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The language has come, the shrug has gone, and he argues in training like a man who expects to be here next year. None of it shows up on a fee and all of it shows up on the pitch.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Colon can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramiro Quintana 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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Colon, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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 Colon, and it is not being withdrawn.
Anthony Sosa 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 Junior Catashunga trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
“I have done everything asked of me in training and it has not changed a thing on a Saturday.” The most familiar complaint in football, and one Colon will have to answer with minutes or with a transfer.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes Agustín Mora a promise
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Colon can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Colon is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Anthony Sosa 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Gonzalo Rivera 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Juan Aguirre is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
The dugoutMateo Miglino without the man who signed him
“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.
Boardroom22 Jul 2030
Deadline passes with 6 signed and 13 gone
That is the business done at Colon until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Colon this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramiro Quintana 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.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Colon can pretend not to have heard.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Colon they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Successful dribbles: 25. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ramiro Quintana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Nahuel Marzochi. 1‑0 against Danubio, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
16 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.
38 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Colon lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Colon can pretend not to have heard.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Colon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
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. 59 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.
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.
Nahuel Marzochi 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.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The words a physio says slowly. 39 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Colon will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Agustín Mora is living that version at Colon, and it tends to show in the first month.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Colon can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Leandro Méndez 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.
Colon asked and Nacional said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.