Marked for Derlis Almada
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market26 Jul 2027
Only the photograph left for Lucas Sanabria
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Lucas Sanabria will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Libertad the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market26 Jul 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Libertad have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Boardroom26 Jul 2027
Window shuts: 8 in, 11 out at Libertad
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 8 arrived, 11 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market26 Jul 2027
The bid was some way short and Libertad did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market26 Jul 2027
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Libertad can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Boardroom26 Jul 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Estifen Díaz has agreed terms with Guarani for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad26 Jul 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Libertad this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Lorenzo Melgarejo 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.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
Libertad asked and Olimpia said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market19 Jul 2027
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Libertad have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market19 Jul 2027
The paperwork is done: Aldo Pérez joins from Guarani in a deal worth $2.4M. Now comes the harder part.
The dugout19 Jul 2027
Derlis Almada: 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.” Libertad have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market19 Jul 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Jonatan Torres 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.
Squad19 Jul 2027
19 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Squad19 Jul 2027
Lorenzo Melgarejo 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.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Libertad asked and Cerro Porteno said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Market19 Jul 2027
The name of Ángel Ibarra has come up in conversations Libertad were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market31 Aug 2026
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Iván Ramírez had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Market31 Aug 2026
Libertad say no — this time
The offer from Sharjah for Ángel González 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Libertad
Nicolás Freire 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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Libertad
12 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Market31 Aug 2026
A conversation is coming this week. Libertad will put a number on him, and from there it stops being football and becomes arithmetic.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Derlis Almada 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Gustavo Aguilar and Libertad agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words exchanged at Libertad
Nicolás Freire 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.
Market10 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Cristian Romero has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Federico Almiron has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Derlis Romero has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.