Marked for Thiago Testini
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match21 Aug 2038
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Gimnasia y Esgrima are no longer polite ones.
Squad23 Aug 2038
Augusto Lucero 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.
Match21 Aug 2038
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 4 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Boardroom23 Aug 2038
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.
Player ratings23 Aug 2038
Nothing got past Liam Rey
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 18 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Squad23 Aug 2038
“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.
Player ratings23 Aug 2038
Marked 7.87 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Gimnasia y Esgrima had the best player on the pitch.
Squad23 Aug 2038
Alan Chacón dropped after a run of poor form
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.
Squad23 Aug 2038
Alejandro Bua has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Nov 2037
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 55 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad2 Nov 2037
A knee injury of the worst kind for Thiago Testini
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Gimnasia y Esgrima lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom2 Nov 2037
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Eduardo Castro has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad2 Nov 2037
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 Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom2 Nov 2037
The money that was there in the summer is not there now. Nobody upstairs calls this a change of ambition, and everybody downstairs reads it as one.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom26 Oct 2037
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad26 Oct 2037
A fracture rules Sergio González out for 62 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Gimnasia y Esgrima will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad26 Oct 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Oct 2037
A fracture rules Sergio González out for 69 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Gimnasia y Esgrima will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad19 Oct 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 28 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 28 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.
Squad19 Oct 2037
Augusto Lucero 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Oct 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 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.
Squad12 Oct 2037
The medical room confirms 40 days on the sidelines for Alan Chacón, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad12 Oct 2037
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 Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad5 Oct 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 42 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 42 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.
Boardroom5 Oct 2037
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market5 Oct 2037
“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.
Squad5 Oct 2037
Enzo Acosta in a row with a teammate
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 Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Oct 2037
A place in the month's best eleven for Alejandro Fernández
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Alejandro Fernández has come out of that comparison in the side, and Gimnasia y Esgrima have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Sep 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 49 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 49 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.
Boardroom28 Sep 2037
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Gimnasia y Esgrima is running low.
Squad28 Sep 2037
Getting past Martín Rossi has become the hardest job in the division
23 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Match26 Sep 2037
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.
Squad28 Sep 2037
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 Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match26 Sep 2037
3 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima can tell you which week it ends in.
Squad28 Sep 2037
Words at Gimnasia y Esgrima training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Mario Moreno 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.
Match26 Sep 2037
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Patronato will be the happier side with the point.
Player ratings28 Sep 2037
An afternoon Miguel Moreno will want back
Marked 5.37. 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad21 Sep 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 56 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 56 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.
Match19 Sep 2037
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Gimnasia y Esgrima are no longer polite ones.
Squad21 Sep 2037
Augusto Lucero 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.
Match19 Sep 2037
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad21 Sep 2037
Bruno Núñez gets it from the manager
“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.
Boardroom21 Sep 2037
118% of the income goes out in wages at Gimnasia y Esgrima
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.
Squad21 Sep 2037
Mario Moreno 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 ratings21 Sep 2037
Marked 5.51, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
Player ratings21 Sep 2037
A day to forget for Pipe
Marked 5.53, and generously at that. Nothing came off, and by the end the crowd had stopped expecting it to.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad14 Sep 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 63 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 63 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.
Squad14 Sep 2037
Getting past Martín Rossi has become the hardest job in the division
22 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Squad14 Sep 2037
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 Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Sep 2037
Nene runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Sep 2037
When it matters, Alan Chacón plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Match12 Sep 2037
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Maipú defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad7 Sep 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 70 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 70 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.
Boardroom7 Sep 2037
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Match5 Sep 2037
3 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. Sergio Bruno will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
Player ratings7 Sep 2037
A brace, and Sergio Bruno takes the afternoon — 7.79
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Sergio Bruno provided it, and the 7.79 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings7 Sep 2037
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Alejandro Fernández did not need any: 8.58, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad7 Sep 2037
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Augusto Lucero and Gimnasia y Esgrima agree another 2 years.
Squad7 Sep 2037
Augusto Lucero 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.
The terraces7 Sep 2037
At 21 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.
Squad7 Sep 2037
“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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad31 Aug 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 77 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 77 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.
Boardroom31 Aug 2037
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad31 Aug 2037
A one-man rearguard from Martín Rossi
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad31 Aug 2037
34 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad31 Aug 2037
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 Esgrima this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Aug 2037
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Player ratings31 Aug 2037
5.68. Every footballer has these and most of them happen away from a full ground; his did not, and he will be aware of that all week.
Player ratings31 Aug 2037
A mark of 5.70 tells the story without any need for embellishment. He will want the tape of this one quietly lost.
Player ratings31 Aug 2037
Nene runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 9. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad24 Aug 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 84 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 84 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.
Squad24 Aug 2037
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings24 Aug 2037
Alejandro Bua, 36, rolls back the years — 8.87
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.87 at 36, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad24 Aug 2037
21 shut-outs and counting. Goalkeepers are only noticed when they fail, and Martín Rossi has given nobody the chance.
Squad24 Aug 2037
“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.
Market24 Aug 2037
Luis Alonso 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 Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
Match22 Aug 2037
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Boardroom24 Aug 2037
126% of the income goes out in wages at Gimnasia y Esgrima
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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match15 Aug 2037
26 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Esgrima has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad17 Aug 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 91 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 91 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.
Match15 Aug 2037
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 8 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad17 Aug 2037
Getting past Martín Rossi has become the hardest job in the division
20 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Squad17 Aug 2037
Enzo Acosta 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.
Match15 Aug 2037
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Gimnasia y Esgrima did not have in the autumn.
Squad17 Aug 2037
“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.
Player ratings17 Aug 2037
Defensive actions: 15, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings17 Aug 2037
Nene runs at them all day
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match8 Aug 2037
25 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Esgrima has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad10 Aug 2037
Thiago Testini damages knee ligaments — 98 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 98 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.
Match8 Aug 2037
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 7 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad10 Aug 2037
Augusto Lucero 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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2037
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 22 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings10 Aug 2037
A defender's afternoon for Liam Rey
Defensive actions: 21. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad10 Aug 2037
Alan Chacón has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima 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.
Squad10 Aug 2037
The manager makes an example of Búfalo
“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.
Player ratings10 Aug 2037
14 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match7 Feb 2037
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Gimnasia y Esgrima has to find a result from somewhere.
Match7 Feb 2037
5 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Market9 Feb 2037
“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 Gimnasia y Esgrima, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Feb 2037
Augusto Lucero 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.
Squad9 Feb 2037
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Augusto Lucero, and the manager let it.
Match7 Feb 2037
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad9 Feb 2037
Thiago Testini 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.
Player ratings9 Feb 2037
Nobody could get near Nene
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market10 Nov 2036
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Esgrima can pretend not to have heard.
Squad10 Nov 2036
Augusto Lucero 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.
Squad10 Nov 2036
Alejandro Bua has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima 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.