Fee agreed, wages agreed, and San Telmo waiting with a shirt. Nobody at All Boys is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around All Boys they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The name of Santiago Cáceres has come up in conversations All Boys were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at All Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ezequiel Ramírez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ezequiel Ramírez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luca Pichin Wayttorn will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around All Boys the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at All Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Squad18 Sep 2028
Words at All Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ezequiel Ramírez 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.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
Nobody at All Boys 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.
Santiago Apa 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 Iván Zafarana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
24 appearances at Persib and the goals have stopped going in. All Boys lent out a goalkeeper and are watching somebody else’s season get better every week.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Ezequiel Ramírez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Nobody at All Boys 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.
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.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around All Boys they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Luca Pichin Wayttorn 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iván Zafarana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
4 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.
4 matches, no goals, and a training ground that has tried everything. It will end — droughts always do — but nobody at All Boys can tell you which week it ends in.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at All Boys this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Aug 2028
Words at All Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ezequiel Ramírez 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.
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.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and All Boys know it.
All Boys and Madryn have settled on $110.0K. The rest belongs to the player and his agent, and a supporter who has watched one of these before knows not to buy the shirt yet.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, and a scan that said otherwise. He goes back to Talleres; All Boys go back to the market; and both will insist there is no story here.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Darius Simkus is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Independiente Rivadavia paid $190.0K and All Boys took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Newell's Old Boys waiting with a shirt. Nobody at All Boys is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. All Boys have done the hard part with Talleres, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
4 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Gustavo Turraca wants continental football; whether All Boys can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
All Boys have gone to Barracas Central 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.
San Lorenzo wanted more than $130.0K and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad19 Jun 2028
Words at All Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iván Zafarana 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.
In brief
Player ratingsMatías Rodríguez did the work nobody counts — 7.11
Iván Zafarana 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.
It happens to all of them and it is still the hardest paragraph a local paper has to write. 35 years old, 3 points down on where he was, and a body that has started charging interest on a career.
“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.
Squad15 May 2028
Words at All Boys training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ezequiel Ramírez 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.
A defender's mistake gets tidied up by somebody else; a goalkeeper's ends up in the net. He knew before the ball crossed the line, and so did everybody in the ground.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout15 May 2028
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Tomás Castillo was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the All Boys dressing room was either.
0‑3 against Ferro Carril Oeste, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Iván Zafarana was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
200 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.
The fixture the rest of the division is looking forward to more than either of the sides in it. Both know a win changes the season and a defeat does not end it, which is what makes it hard to play.
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at All Boys can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.81 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
The most common injury in the game and the most rushed back from. All Boys will quote 14 days and will be careful with it, because the second one is always worse than the first.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Darius Simkus is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ezequiel Ramírez 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.
Player ratings14 Feb 2028
A brace, and Santiago Apa takes the afternoon — 8.36
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Santiago Apa provided it, and the 8.36 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Benjamín González provided it, and the 8.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
7 goals in one match, Santiago Apa on the scoresheet, and a scoreline that will look like a misprint. Neutrals could not have asked more of All Boys and Atlanta.
Squad14 Feb 2028
Iván Zafarana 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.
Diego Guallama 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.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Benjamín González, and the manager let it.
Squad14 Feb 2028
11 new faces, and All Boys 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.