Marked for Simón Escobar
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match18 Sep 2027
The run at home goes on for Vélez
12 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Words exchanged at Vélez
Tomás Marchiori 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.
Squad20 Sep 2027
Simón Escobar is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 18 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad20 Sep 2027
A row about effort at Vélez
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Lucas Robertone was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“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.
Loan watch20 Sep 2027
“I did not go to Ñublense to sit and watch. I want to come back to Vélez and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 38 matches say the rest.
Player ratings20 Sep 2027
Marked 7.35. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Vélez, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout20 Sep 2027
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Felipe Castillo chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match28 Aug 2027
Vélez make home a hard place to visit
11 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.
Market30 Aug 2027
Add another name to the list: Petrojet have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Bautista Rámirez. The answer from Vélez has not changed — yet.
Match28 Aug 2027
Defensa y Justicia made Vélez work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad30 Aug 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 Vélez this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad30 Aug 2027
Too much change too quickly at Vélez
10 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.
Loan watch30 Aug 2027
“I watch every Vélez game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Excursionistas runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Player ratings30 Aug 2027
A mark of 7.64, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
The dugout30 Aug 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Felipe Castillo, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The dugout30 Aug 2027
Diego Valdés has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Vélez 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match31 Jul 2027
8 unbeaten for Vélez
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 8 matches without defeat is a foundation Vélez did not have in the autumn.
Match31 Jul 2027
4 matches without a win for Vélez
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Vélez are no longer polite ones.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Tempers go at Vélez
Tomás Marchiori 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.
Match31 Jul 2027
The run at home goes on for Vélez
10 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Transfer targets2 Aug 2027
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Vélez will try again when the window opens; Estudiantes may not be selling by then.
Loan watch2 Aug 2027
“I did not go to Excursionistas to sit and watch. I want to come back to Vélez and fight for my place.” 8 appearances in 28 matches say the rest.
Squad2 Aug 2027
Words at Vélez training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Manuel Fedorco 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 dugout2 Aug 2027
“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.
Market2 Aug 2027
The Tomás Blanco conversation is coming
Everyone has stopped pretending: Pafos will make the call about Tomás Blanco this week. Vélez have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
In brief
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Squad
Too much change too quickly at Vélez
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Squad
A place in the month's best eleven for Simón Escobar
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The dugout
Diego Valdés has become a man the manager trusts
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match21 Jul 2027
Cup progress for Vélez
A 0‑0 win over Argentinos Juniors, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad26 Jul 2027
1 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
$400.0K settles it between the clubs for Facundo Castelli
Estudiantes have accepted the money. What Vélez do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
Market26 Jul 2027
Fénix come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Vélez did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Boardroom26 Jul 2027
Vélez close the window on a squad of their own making
9 in and 7 out, and no more changes for months. The manager has what he has, the supporters have their opinion of it, and the table will have the last word.
Market26 Jul 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Vélez is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Match24 Jul 2027
Still nobody has beaten Vélez
The unbeaten run reaches 7. Some of them were wins and some were escapes, but a side that refuses to lose is a side other dressing rooms talk about.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Words exchanged at Vélez
Tomás Marchiori 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.
Match24 Jul 2027
Nobody wins at Vélez
9 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout19 Jul 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings19 Jul 2027
At 33 every good afternoon gets called a throwback, and this one was: 7.84, and nobody on the pitch better.
Transfer targets19 Jul 2027
Vélez offered $2.1M; Huracán said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Boardroom19 Jul 2027
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.2M — a club that wants Natanael Samaniego enough to be asked twice.
Boardroom19 Jul 2027
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Lautaro Bernazza has agreed terms with Acassuso for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
Squad19 Jul 2027
A falling-out at Vélez
Tomás Marchiori and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Market19 Jul 2027
The phone has started ringing about Simón Escobar again, and this time the name on the line is Fénix. Vélez are listening politely and promising nothing.
Match17 Jul 2027
Vélez make home a hard place to visit
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.
Player ratings19 Jul 2027
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 11 actions, 7.38, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad4 Jan 2027
A fracture rules Ronaldo Martínez out for 57 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Vélez will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market4 Jan 2027
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Argentino de Quilmes waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Vélez is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market4 Jan 2027
The bid was some way short and Vélez did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market4 Jan 2027
The name of Tomás Marchiori has come up in conversations Vélez were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Matías Aguirre 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.
Squad4 Jan 2027
A move Felipe Coronel 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. Felipe Coronel is living that version at Vélez, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad4 Jan 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 Vélez this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Jan 2027
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Market4 Jan 2027
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match24 Oct 2026
The wait goes on for Vélez
9 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.
Match24 Oct 2026
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Rodrigo Aliendro will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Vélez escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Up for the corner, and Rodrigo Aliendro delivers — 7.76
Centre-halves are allowed forward twice a season and are judged on what they do when they get there. Rodrigo Aliendro scored, was marked 7.76, and got back before anybody noticed he had gone.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Vélez may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market26 Oct 2026
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Vélez is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Vélez
Aarón Quiros 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.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Simón Escobar is 17, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Boardroom26 Oct 2026
Central Córdoba SdE will keep picking him until June and will get nothing for him after it. Lucas Varaldo has pre-agreed a move to Vélez, and the only people who lose in that arrangement are the ones who let the contract run down.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Aarón Quiros, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market21 Sep 2026
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Vélez they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Match19 Sep 2026
5 matches without a win for Vélez
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Vélez are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2026
At 17 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Match19 Sep 2026
3 matches without a goal for Vélez
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Match19 Sep 2026
Boca Juniors left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words exchanged at Vélez
Leo Cristaldo 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 dugout21 Sep 2026
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Tomás Marchiori trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.