Marked for Nicolás Azambuja
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. PSV have kept their man, and AS Roma go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market17 Aug 2026
“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.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Atalanta wanted more than $5.2M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A move Nicolás Azambuja 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. Nicolás Azambuja is living that version at AS Roma, and it tends to show in the first month.
Market17 Aug 2026
The Manu Koné conversation is coming
Everyone has stopped pretending: Atlético Madrid will make the call about Manu Koné this week. AS Roma have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A falling-out at AS Roma
Gianluca Mancini and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market17 Aug 2026
Interest from Lazio is the one kind AS Roma cannot discuss calmly. The player has said nothing; the supporters have said everything, most of it unprintable.
Market17 Aug 2026
He is 18, and nobody at AS Roma signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Squad17 Aug 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market17 Aug 2026
AS Roma arrived with $1.7M and left with the best player in the building. The board will call it business; the queue at the ticket office will use other words.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
The terraces17 Aug 2026
Nicolás Azambuja has gone, the accounts have $1.7M in them, and the supporters have the feeling of having been sold something themselves. Good business and a good decision are not always the same thing.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
Progreso will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Agustín Requena has pre-agreed a move to Danubio, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Mateo Rinaldi 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.
Squad17 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Danubio
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Juan Millán was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
Enrique Femia is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
13 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
AS Roma have gone to Danubio with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Álvaro Aguado arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Álvaro Aguado has, at AS Roma, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at AS Roma heard it as anything else.
Market3 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Paulo Dybala commits to AS Roma for another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Manu Koné in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at AS Roma this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets3 Aug 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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
9 new faces, and AS Roma are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market3 Aug 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Danubio they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Market3 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Boardroom3 Aug 2026
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.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Iván Rossi and Danubio agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 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 Danubio this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Nicolás Azambuja again, and this time the name on the line is AS Roma. Danubio are listening politely and promising nothing.
Match1 Aug 2026
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout3 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Danubio, another week without a signature from Hugo Silveira.