Jonás Aguirre 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.
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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
The manager has not finished forgetting Nicolás Contín's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Marked 4.05. Nothing he attempted worked and by the hour mark he had stopped attempting much, which is the part a manager notices rather than the mistakes.
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
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 Tiro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Beaten 4 times, with 5 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
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 Tiro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings28 Aug 2028
Tiago Banega was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.86. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Adrián Vega 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tiago Banega. 2‑0 against San Miguel, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
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.
14 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.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Tiago Banega. 2‑1 against San Martín, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Marked 8.90 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
At 22 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.
San Martín held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Gimnasia y Tiro answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
“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.
6 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Tiro has to find a result from somewhere.
The terraces17 Jul 2028
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 5 of the 25 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Gimnasia y Tiro will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
A brace, and Tiago Banega takes the afternoon — 8.79
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Tiago Banega provided it, and the 8.79 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
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.
Bautista Lippi 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ramiro Paludi 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.
Conceding is one thing; the response is what tells you about a dressing room. Tiago Banega had Gimnasia y Tiro level again within 3 minutes, and Los Andes never got to play with a lead at all.
4 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gimnasia y Tiro is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
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 Tiro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Jul 2028
Ramiro Paludi 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.
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.
4 arrivals, an average age nobody would call a squad, and a set of parents being shown around a building their sons will spend more time in than at home. The scouting has already happened; today is only the paperwork.
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 Tiro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Ramiro Paludi 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.
Player ratings19 Jun 2028
Nicolás Contín was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.10. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
It needed Nicolás Contín to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Tristán Suárez, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.