Marked for Ignacio Cellerino
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces17 Jan 2033
Supporters organise against the Sport Huancayo board
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.
Boardroom17 Jan 2033
Pressure builds in the Sport Huancayo boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad17 Jan 2033
Ezequiel Gerez 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.
Transfer targets17 Jan 2033
Sport Huancayo ran out of time with Deportivo Municipal. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Squad17 Jan 2033
Sport Huancayo are still strangers to each other
8 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout17 Jan 2033
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sport Huancayo, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Market17 Jan 2033
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sport Huancayo, another week without a signature from Ignacio Cellerino.
Market17 Jan 2033
1 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Sport Huancayo money.
Squad17 Jan 2033
He is doing things every Saturday that nobody around him can answer. It is flattering for a season and a problem after that, and Sport Huancayo know which stage they are at.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad10 Jan 2033
Jonathan Vega damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Market10 Jan 2033
Jeremy Flor has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Sport Huancayo they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Transfer targets10 Jan 2033
A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Sport Huancayo will try again when the window opens; Alianza Lima may not be selling by then.
Squad10 Jan 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sport Huancayo this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market10 Jan 2033
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sport Huancayo, another week without a signature from Sebastián Marfort.
Squad10 Jan 2033
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Sport Huancayo will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
Market10 Jan 2033
4 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Sport Huancayo money.
Squad10 Jan 2033
The table has started to be checked before the results are in, and that is always the tell. Nobody at Sport Huancayo says the word out loud, and everybody in the building is thinking it.
Market10 Jan 2033
Sport Huancayo spent the window trying to move Gianfranco Chávez on and nobody came. He trains with a squad that has already told him he is not part of it, and both sides now wait for the next one.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad26 Jul 2032
A knee injury of the worst kind for Cristian Navarro
75 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Vélez lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market26 Jul 2032
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Sarmiento had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Match21 Jul 2032
Vélez through in the cup
A 2‑1 win over Independiente, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Squad26 Jul 2032
Gael De Luca breaks a bone — 50 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 50 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Boardroom26 Jul 2032
He arrived for a fee and leaves for a fraction of it. $3.0M of what Vélez paid for Ian Subiabre is money the club will not see again, and the boardroom will be asked about it for two seasons.
Market26 Jul 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market26 Jul 2032
The deal that would have taken Franco Mesa to Huracán has collapsed at the last stage, and he reports back to Vélez with a summer to forget and a season still to play. Nobody is saying which side walked away.
Boardroom26 Jul 2032
Window shuts: 3 in, 10 out at Vélez
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 3 arrived, 10 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2032
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Tigre is saying, and nobody at Vélez is enjoying the guessing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market12 Apr 2032
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.
Squad12 Apr 2032
Words exchanged at Vélez
Matías Pellegrini 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 Apr 2032
Words at Vélez training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Erick Noriega 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 dugout12 Apr 2032
“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.
Match10 Apr 2032
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad12 Apr 2032
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
The dugout12 Apr 2032
Sebastián Meza is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
Squad12 Apr 2032
An error at the back is a moment; an error in goal is a goal. Sebastián Meza knows it, the crowd knew it instantly, and there was nobody behind him to make it anything else.
The dugout12 Apr 2032
“I could talk about decisions and I could talk about luck. I will not. We lost.” The manager, 0‑1, and a press conference that lasted four minutes.