Marked for Leandro Solarte
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Feb 2028
Leandro Solarte damages knee ligaments — 22 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 22 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.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.65 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market28 Feb 2028
The offer from Houston Dynamo for Tomás Pérez was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad28 Feb 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 Racing Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Feb 2028
Matko Miljevic 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.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings28 Feb 2028
Ninety minutes of Matko Miljevic at his very best
Marked 8.20. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Racing Club.
Squad28 Feb 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Tomás Conechny, and the manager let it.
Match26 Feb 2028
It finished 2‑2, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Feb 2028
Leandro Solarte damages knee ligaments — 31 days out
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.
Player ratings21 Feb 2028
Adrián Martínez, 35, rolls back the years — 7.91
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Santiago 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
Matías Zaracho 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.
Squad21 Feb 2028
The manager makes an example of Matko Miljevic
“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.
Match19 Feb 2028
It needed Adrián Martínez to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against River Plate, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad14 Feb 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Leandro Solarte
41 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Club lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad14 Feb 2028
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Adrián Martínez, 35, rolls back the years — 9.02
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.02 at 35, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad14 Feb 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 Racing Club this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Matko Miljevic 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.
Match12 Feb 2028
A 3‑2 win over Godoy Cruz, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Match12 Feb 2028
Another one collected away from home
3 on the bounce on the road for Racing Club. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Loan watch14 Feb 2028
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Racing Club, and 1 appearances in 7 say he has earned the hearing.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.