The words a physio says slowly. 29 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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nautico they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nautico this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Apr 2038
Words at Nautico training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Giménez 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.
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.
67 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nautico lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nautico they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nautico this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadJuan Bosca has become a man the manager trusts
The words a physio says slowly. 106 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 clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Nautico is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Luís Pacheco 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.
In brief
SquadJuan Giménez falls out with a teammate over standards
The words a physio says slowly. 127 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.
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Nautico have had the benefit of it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tomás Pastorino will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nautico the goodbyes have quietly begun.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Nautico heard it as anything else.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Francisco Barroso reports back to Nautico with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
The words a physio says slowly. 134 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nazareno Funez will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nautico the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Nazareno Funez has agreed terms with America Mineiro for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Gabriel Índio 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.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Vitor Machado has just signed for Nautico, and for once the answer mattered.
In brief
SquadWords at Nautico training over how hard people work
63 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Nautico lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nautico have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Nautico they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nautico this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The words a physio says slowly. 140 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.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nautico have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nautico this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadLuis Montilla falls out with a teammate over standards
“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 Nautico, and it is not being withdrawn.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.12 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Nautico have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Gabriel Índio 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.
Squad8 Jun 2037
Words at Nautico training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luis Montilla 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.
Marked 9.08 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
13 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Nautico can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nautico this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Jun 2037
Words at Nautico training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Giménez 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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 Nautico will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 30 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Nautico this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings22 Dec 2036
Luís Pacheco was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.09. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.