Marked for Ignacio Ovando
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market28 Dec 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Rosario Central, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets28 Dec 2026
$3.7M on the table at Boca Juniors. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets28 Dec 2026
Rosario Central offered $4.9M; Toluca said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Market28 Dec 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets28 Dec 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market28 Dec 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rosario Central they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad28 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 Rosario Central this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market28 Dec 2026
The fee is $240.0K, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Sarmiento drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Ignacio Ovando is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market16 Nov 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Rosario Central can pretend not to have heard.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Ángel Di María 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.
Market16 Nov 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rosario Central they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Rosario Central training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alan Rodríguez 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.
Squad16 Nov 2026
A muscle injury sidelines Giovanni Cantizano for 14 days
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Rosario Central will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Ignacio Ovando's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Thiago Ponce
“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.
Market16 Nov 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Rosario Central know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Oct 2026
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rosario Central will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Ángel Di María, 38, rolls back the years — 8.26
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.26 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Up for the corner, and Franco Ibarra delivers — 7.83
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Franco Ibarra scored, was marked 7.83, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
Boardroom5 Oct 2026
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lorenzo Fernández has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad5 Oct 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 Rosario Central this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2026
At 19 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Market5 Oct 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rosario Central they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alan Rodríguez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.