Richard Rios 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.
Everybody at Resistencia saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 37 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
Squad25 Mar 2030
Lucas Moura 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.
“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.
Squad25 Mar 2030
9 new faces, and Resistencia 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.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager’s verdict
Player ratingsJulio Montiel beats them one at a time
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Resistencia can pretend not to have heard.
Squad11 Feb 2030
Words at Resistencia training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Lucas Moura 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.
Julio Montiel 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.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Still no offer on the table, and Alan Duré’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Resistencia, and it is not being withdrawn.
Player ratings4 Feb 2030
Julio Montiel could not have asked for more on his first appearance — 7.57
Debuts are survived rather than enjoyed. This one was enjoyed: 7.57, 0 goals, and a manager already being asked whether he starts again next week.
Derlis Aguilera 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.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Richard Rios was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Resistencia can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
The clubs have shaken hands with Olimpia; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Resistencia can pretend not to have heard.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Alan Duré has just signed for Resistencia, and for once the answer mattered.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Resistencia have done the hard part with Sportivo Trinidense, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Edgar Villalba is a Resistencia player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
19 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Fernando de la Mora has to find a result from somewhere.
Fernando Sanguinetti 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Richard Franco was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout28 May 2029
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Edgar Peralta to a room that had heard them before.
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.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Richard Franco trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
14 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.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fernando de la Mora will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Richard Franco 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.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alan Duré 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.
7.38, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Fernando de la Mora had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
The dugout23 Apr 2029
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Edgar Peralta was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Fernando de la Mora dressing room was either.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Fernando de la Mora will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
7 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.
Fernando Sanguinetti 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.
14 combined actions and 7.00. The job he did is the one that shows up as other people looking good, and the only reliable way to notice it is to watch what happens on the afternoons he is missing.
The gap in the accounts was filled from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be grateful and to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings arrive together.
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.
Minute 89, against Encarnacion, and a goal that felt like a win to everybody who had stayed. It was a draw. Nobody leaving the ground will describe it as one.
“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 Fernando de la Mora, and it is not being withdrawn.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Fernando de la Mora they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Carlos Mendiola 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Richard Franco 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 system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
Marcos Gómez arrived with a record at a bigger club than this one, and the room has treated him accordingly. The young ones watch him train; the senior ones watch to see whether it lasts.
Position 16 and 23 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Fernando de la Mora can pretend not to have heard.
Edgar González 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. Richard Franco 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.
Fernando de la Mora asked and Sportivo San Lorenzo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Fernando de la Mora have made the call to Sportivo Luqueno. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Edgar González 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.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Richard Araújo and Fernando de la Mora agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Nelson Gauto 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.
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Fernando de la Mora has been clear about where Jorge Armoa stands, which is more than many ever get.