5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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.
8 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
8 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Esgrima has to find a result from somewhere.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Julián Ceballos will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gimnasia y Esgrima the goodbyes have quietly begun.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Pedro Baster 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Saavedra 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.
7 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.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
19 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Ismael Cortez is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The dugout4 Sep 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Daniel Bianchi was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Gimnasia y Esgrima dressing room was either.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Santiago Rodríguez is on it.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Esgrima has to find a result from somewhere.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Saavedra 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.
10 combined actions and 6.70. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
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.
“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.
Ninety minutes, no goals, and the argument started before the car park emptied: a point gained, or two thrown away against San Lorenzo? Both sides of it will still be going on Thursday.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
5 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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Julián Ceballos has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
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.
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.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Daniel Bianchi after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Esgrima has to find a result from somewhere.
Pedro Baster 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.
12 combined actions and 7.24. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
“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.
The dugout14 Aug 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 1‑2 Daniel Bianchi left the room before anybody could ask which.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Franco Saavedra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
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.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 2‑2 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and both men came out saying it was fine.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ismael Cortez signs something — a contract at Gimnasia y Esgrima or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gimnasia y Esgrima they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom24 Jul 2028
Deadline passes with 5 signed and 12 gone
That is the business done at Gimnasia y Esgrima until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Gimnasia y Esgrima will try again when the window opens; Estudiantes may not be selling by then.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nicolás Romano 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.
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.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Boca Juniors next, and one man in the Gimnasia y Esgrima dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
Gimnasia y Esgrima and Estudiantes have settled on $260.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Franco Saavedra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Valentín Ramos and Gimnasia y Esgrima agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Gimnasia y Esgrima were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Gimnasia y Esgrima have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
None of them will be seen by anybody outside the training ground for three years, most of them will never play a senior match, and one of them might change the club. That is the whole proposition, and it is why academies exist.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lautaro Petruchi is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gimnasia y Esgrima, another week without a signature from Diego Mondino.
Not a new contract, not a new number: a new place in the manager’s thinking, which is the only promotion in football that actually matters. Julián Ceballos has moved up it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and both men came out saying it was fine.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
The offer from Rodina for Julián Ceballos 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.
Everything agreed with Estudiantes, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Franco Saavedra 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 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.
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Gimnasia y Esgrima have lost him in all but the paperwork.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Gimnasia y Esgrima and Estudiantes have settled on $16.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolás Romano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gimnasia y Esgrima the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Pedro Baster 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Facundo Lencioni is on it.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and both men came out saying it was fine.
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.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Pedro Baster 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.
$53.0K was the most the club would pay and Ferro Carril Oeste were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Signings arrive with a picture of the club in their head, and this one’s picture was bigger than the building. He will play well and he will be gone, in that order, and everybody knows it.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Santiago Rodríguez is on it.
29 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima 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 Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lautaro Petruchi is on it.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Gimnasia y Esgrima, another week without a signature from Diego Mondino.
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Every club has a bad month for injuries and this is the one. 5 unavailable, a bench with academy names on it, and a manager who has stopped asking the medical staff for dates.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Pedro Baster trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The words a physio says slowly. 50 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.
Platense will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Gimnasia y Esgrima were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Blas Armoa 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Santiago Rodríguez is on it.
The words a physio says slowly. 57 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.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
10 without a win is the sort of run that changes how a town talks about its club, and Vélez were the afternoon it stopped. Nothing is fixed by one result and everything feels different by one.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Gimnasia y Esgrima 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 Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
64 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
10 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.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Gimnasia y Esgrima has been clear about where Franco Saavedra stands, which is more than many ever get.
The words a physio says slowly. 99 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
4 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Esgrima has to find a result from somewhere.
Blas Armoa 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.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
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.
106 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Pedro Baster 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.
“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.
The dugout20 Mar 2028
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Daniel Bianchi left the room before anybody could ask which.
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Facundo Lencioni signs something — a contract at Gimnasia y Esgrima or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 113 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nicolás Romano will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Gimnasia y Esgrima the goodbyes have quietly begun.
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 Gimnasia y Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Blas Armoa. 1‑0 against Boca Juniors, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Fermín Antonini 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.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
61 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. Gimnasia y Esgrima will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Pedro Baster 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.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Facundo Lencioni is on it.
68 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
Pedro Baster 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.
He is 17, and nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima signed him for this season. Deals like this are judged in four years, by people who may not still be in the building.
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
The dugoutEzequiel Muñoz asks for a word with the manager
The words a physio says slowly. 75 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.
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Everything agreed with another club, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
He is doing his job and he is not settling. Gimnasia y Esgrima were supposed to be a step up in his own reckoning, and his own reckoning has been adjusted since he arrived.
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.
Matías Muñoz 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.
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.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ismael Cortez signs something — a contract at Gimnasia y Esgrima or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
What was a back-page story is now a matter for the terraces, and the terraces do not do nuance. Gimnasia y Esgrima would like it dealt with before it becomes the only question anybody asks.