Marked for Joaquín Rivero
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Ivan Rossi has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Market4 Sep 2028
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
$139.0K from the owner keeps Los Halcones afloat
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Dilan Cardozo 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.
Boardroom4 Sep 2028
Wages eat 227% of everything Los Halcones earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Squad4 Sep 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Daniel Rodriguez and Los Halcones agree another 3 years.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Los Halcones are still strangers to each other
9 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
Squad4 Sep 2028
Facundo de los Santos 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.
Market4 Sep 2028
He is 20, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom5 Jul 2027
Ivan Rossi has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Los Halcones can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market5 Jul 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
The dugout5 Jul 2027
Andrés Acuña faces a manager he fell out with
They have worked together before and it did not end well. Nobody at Los Halcones expects the new manager to have forgotten, least of all Andrés Acuña.
Squad5 Jul 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Fabricio González commits to Los Halcones for another 4 years.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Andrés Acuña 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 Los Halcones this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Penarol have kept their man, and Los Halcones go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Lucas Scarlatto 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 dugout5 Jul 2027
Nicolás Rijo gets it from the manager
“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.
Transfer targets5 Jul 2027
A loan enquiry to Deportivo Maldonado: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market26 Apr 2027
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match24 Apr 2027
8 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Jonathan Silva: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Los Halcones have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
Andrés Acuña faces a manager he fell out with
They have worked together before and it did not end well. Nobody at Los Halcones expects the new manager to have forgotten, least of all Andrés Acuña.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Andrés Acuña 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.
Squad26 Apr 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Nicolás Rijo was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Match24 Apr 2027
La Luz left with the points after a 1‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The dugout26 Apr 2027
The manager makes an example of Lucas Scarlatto
“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.
Looking ahead26 Apr 2027
Everything rides on Alto Peru
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Los Halcones know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Feb 2027
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Los Halcones lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.12, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Marked 7.60 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Juan Mora 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.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match20 Feb 2027
It finished 3‑1, and it was Nicolás Calero’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Los Halcones.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Nicolás Rijo 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.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
213% of the income goes out in wages at Los Halcones
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The terraces22 Feb 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Oscar Cabrera has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.