Marked for Mario Sandoval
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Mar 2029
A fracture rules Gonzalo Rivas out for 73 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Guarani de Fram will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad5 Mar 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Enzon Bernal commits to Guarani de Fram for another 2 years.
Match3 Mar 2029
1‑2 to Sportivo Ameliano, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Player ratings5 Mar 2029
Successful dribbles: 19. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout5 Mar 2029
“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.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Fernando Bracho 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.
The dugout5 Mar 2029
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Mario Sandoval 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.
Market5 Mar 2029
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Guarani de Fram, another week without a signature from Luis Solignac.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout20 Dec 2027
Franco Troyansky: 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.” Audax Italiano have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market20 Dec 2027
“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 The request is on a desk at Audax Italiano, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets20 Dec 2027
The deal with Flamengo is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Marcos Victor 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 targets20 Dec 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Curicó Unido have kept their man, and Audax Italiano go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market20 Dec 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Audax Italiano have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad20 Dec 2027
Bryan Soto 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.
Squad20 Dec 2027
The medical room confirms 20 days on the sidelines for Mario Sandoval, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Transfer targets20 Dec 2027
Vélez have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad22 Nov 2027
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Audax Italiano will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market22 Nov 2027
José Ojeda hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Audax Italiano can pretend not to have heard.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Marcos Victor 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
52 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Bryan Soto 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.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
Marcelo Ortiz has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Audax Italiano 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.
The dugout22 Nov 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 Audax Italiano, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout22 Nov 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Jaime Vargas, and the manager let it.
Loan watch22 Nov 2027
The goals keep arriving from Luis Riveros’s exile
6 goals in 9 games at Roda — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Audax Italiano updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.