Marked for Bruno Cambilla
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad16 Oct 2028
Mariano Penepil and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad16 Oct 2028
Gianfranco Livia falls out with a teammate over standards
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 dugout16 Oct 2028
The manager makes an example of Bruno Cambilla
“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.
Squad16 Oct 2028
The division's best last weekend was a Deportivo Merlo man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Rodrigo Hernández was the best thing in any of them.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
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.
Looking ahead16 Oct 2028
Deportivo Laferrere next, and one man in the Deportivo Merlo dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The dugout16 Oct 2028
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Cristian Colmán trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market16 Oct 2028
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Diego Aguirre signs something — a contract at Deportivo Merlo or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad16 Oct 2028
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Deportivo Merlo will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match8 Aug 2028
1‑4 to Acassuso, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad14 Aug 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Deportivo Merlo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom14 Aug 2028
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.84 on the card, and the Deportivo Merlo support went home talking about one name.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gianfranco Livia was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad14 Aug 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Joel Gonzalez and Deportivo Merlo agree another 4 years.
Match12 Aug 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.
The dugout14 Aug 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Bruno Cambilla, and the manager let it.
Market14 Aug 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Deportivo Merlo, another week without a signature from Cristian Colmán.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad20 Dec 2027
Juan Pablo Ruiz damages knee ligaments — 27 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 27 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.
Market20 Dec 2027
“It was not right for me. I am not going to explain why to anybody except the people I owe an explanation to.” A deal agreed between two clubs, and a player who declined to be part of it.
Boardroom20 Dec 2027
Pressure builds in the Deportivo Merlo boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad20 Dec 2027
A move Bruno Cambilla 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. Bruno Cambilla is living that version at Deportivo Merlo, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Mariano Penepil 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Diego Aguirre falls out with a teammate over standards
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.
Boardroom20 Dec 2027
Nothing happens for months and then he simply arrives, at no cost, having signed a pre-contract while still turning out for somebody else. It is the least dramatic way to sign a footballer and frequently the shrewdest.
Transfer targets20 Dec 2027
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.
Market20 Dec 2027
The name of Federico Tursi has come up in conversations Deportivo Merlo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.