A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Sol de America waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Vélez is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ignacio Cardozo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Vélez the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Lautaro Jaimes 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.
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.
In brief
SquadWords at Vélez training over how hard people work
$9.1M on the table at Udinese. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Tristán Suárez waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Vélez is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Jesús Ricardo Angulo wants continental football; whether Vélez can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
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.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Franco Villalba 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.
Fabrizio Sartori 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Fabrizio Sartori. 1‑0 against Unión de Santa Fe, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. San Lorenzo have paid $47.0M for Antonio Blanco, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Gastón Hernández had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around San Lorenzo people have started saying his name in the past tense.
The clubs have shaken hands with Excursionistas; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Gastón Hernández 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.
Antonio Blanco was the name on every phone-in, and the club has gone and signed him for $47.0M. For one week the board can do no wrong, which is a week most boards never get.
Position 14 and 12 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Vélez have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The fee is $1.0M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. San Lorenzo drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Vélez asked and Den Bosch said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Bautista Rámirez 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.
Squad12 Jul 2027
7 new faces, and Vélez are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Vélez, and 9 appearances in 11 say he has earned the hearing.
San Lorenzo asked and Grêmio said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at San Lorenzo is running low.
Mathías de Ritis 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 name of Lautaro Cueli has come up in conversations San Lorenzo were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
14 games and 7 goals away from here, and a man the manager did not have last summer. The loan did what loans are supposed to do and almost never do.
Squad5 Jul 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nahuel Barrios 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 manager has re-ordered his thinking and Facundo Bruera has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
Signed today, seen by nobody for years, and one of them may one day be the reason the club exists. That is the whole of the argument for an academy, and it is a good one.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Deportivo Riestra had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Vélez can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
“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 Vélez, and it is not being withdrawn.
Vélez have gone to San Lorenzo with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Vélez heard it as anything else.
The offer went to Alavés this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Axel Araujo is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad28 Jun 2027
Words at San Lorenzo training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Facundo Farías 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.
Rodrigo Pereira 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.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Words at Mérida training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Saba Sazonov 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.
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑3 defeat, delivered by Leo Caballero to a room that had heard them before.
Talavera next, and one man in the Mérida dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
8 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.
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, 6.61, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Mérida training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Joaquín Montiel 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 dugout21 Sep 2026
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 0‑2 Leo Caballero left the room before anybody could ask which.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Mérida will not try tonight.
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Pablo Cacharrón’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Mérida needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
0‑1 against Palmeiras, and an evening that measured the gap rather than the ninety minutes. Nothing about it was a disgrace and nothing about it was close.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at San Lorenzo is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
5 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at San Lorenzo can tell you which week it ends in.
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 San Lorenzo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.