Marked for Javier Romero
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match13 Mar 2030
0‑1 against Terremoto, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Match13 Mar 2030
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.
Squad18 Mar 2030
Lucas Nunez and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad18 Mar 2030
Words at Sud America training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Pablo Doncel 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 dugout18 Mar 2030
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
The dugout18 Mar 2030
“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.
The dugout18 Mar 2030
Luis Pereira knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sud America, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout18 Mar 2030
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
Market18 Mar 2030
The name of Jonathan Lima keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Sud America say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market21 Jan 2030
Only the photograph left for Dilan Cardozo
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dilan Cardozo will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Sud America the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market21 Jan 2030
“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.
Transfer targets21 Jan 2030
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Nacional have kept their man, and Sud America go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad21 Jan 2030
Exequiel Zárate 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.
Squad21 Jan 2030
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sud America this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout21 Jan 2030
The manager makes an example of Lucas Vignone
“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.
The dugout21 Jan 2030
Exequiel Zárate asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad21 Jan 2030
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Sud America know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Market21 Jan 2030
The clock does Dilan Cardozo’s negotiating for him
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Sud America could ask drops and the wages Dilan Cardozo can ask rise.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom19 Nov 2029
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Sud America
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Squad19 Nov 2029
Enzo Lemos 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.
Squad19 Nov 2029
Words at Sud America training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Juan Pablo Doncel 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.
Boardroom19 Nov 2029
No signings allowed at Sud America
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
The dugout19 Nov 2029
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Sud America, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The dugout19 Nov 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.
Market19 Nov 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Jonathan Lima’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout19 Nov 2029
The manager makes Alejo Cicconi a promise
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Sud America. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Market19 Nov 2029
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Sud America, another week without a signature from Javier Romero.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Nov 2029
Enzo Lemos 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 Nov 2029
Juan Pablo Doncel 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.
Boardroom12 Nov 2029
The borrowing at Sud America reaches $15.0M
Past the limit the bank set, which is the line between a club being financed and a club being in trouble. $15.0M is now the number every conversation about this club will start with.
The dugout12 Nov 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.
Market12 Nov 2029
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Market12 Nov 2029
5 months and counting on Martín Mazza
Still no offer on the table, and Martín Mazza’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Match12 Nov 2029
Sud America in the hunt for Europe
Position 5, 20 points, and a run-in that decides whether next season has Thursday nights in it. Nobody is calling it a race yet, which is what people say during one.
Squad12 Nov 2029
Competition arrives for Enzo Lemos
A new face in his position and a shirt he thought he owned suddenly up for discussion. Sud America have promised nothing, which is what clubs promise at this stage.
Market12 Nov 2029
3 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Sud America could get for him.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Dec 2028
A knee injury of the worst kind for Bernardo Medina
56 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Guairena lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market11 Dec 2028
“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.
Squad11 Dec 2028
Tomás Lezcano 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 targets11 Dec 2028
The offer went to Pastoreo this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Market11 Dec 2028
The name of Carlos López has come up in conversations Guairena were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Market11 Dec 2028
No place for Éver Cáceres in the plan
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Éver Cáceres has his answer from Guairena; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Boardroom11 Dec 2028
98% of the income goes out in wages at Guairena
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.
Transfer targets11 Dec 2028
Olimpia 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.
Transfer targets11 Dec 2028
A loan move for Fredy Silvero is in the works
Guairena have made the call to Cerro Porteno. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad2 Oct 2028
133 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Guairena lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
The terraces2 Oct 2028
Supporters organise against the Guairena 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.
Boardroom2 Oct 2028
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.
Market2 Oct 2028
Éver Cáceres 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 Guairena can pretend not to have heard.
Squad2 Oct 2028
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Bernardo Medina commits to Guairena for another 2 years.
Squad2 Oct 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Guairena this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Oct 2028
Richard Salinas 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.
Market2 Oct 2028
Carlos López is free to find somewhere else
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Guairena has been clear about where Carlos López stands, which is more than many ever get.
The dugout2 Oct 2028
The manager's exit leaves Gustavo Viera exposed
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. Gustavo Viera is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom25 Sep 2028
Pressure builds in the Guairena boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Match25 Sep 2028
Every point is an argument now for Guairena
Position 15 and 28 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
A fracture rules Éver Cáceres out for 18 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Guairena will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Gustavo Viera 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
Richard Salinas 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.
Squad25 Sep 2028
16 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
“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.
The dugout25 Sep 2028
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Mathías Delbono is on it.