Marked for Julián Russo
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
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.
Boardroom4 Feb 2030
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Squad4 Feb 2030
“The easiest signature of my career.” Mateo Carrizo and Rampla Juniors agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad4 Feb 2030
Kevin Martínez 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.
Squad4 Feb 2030
Words at Rampla Juniors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sebastián Cal 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.
Squad4 Feb 2030
Facundo Labandeira loses the manager who believed in him
A change in the dugout is not one story, it is twenty-five of them. This is Facundo Labandeira's: he was somebody's player, and now he has to be somebody else's, starting from nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Jul 2029
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Rampla Juniors will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market16 Jul 2029
“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 The request is on a desk at Rampla Juniors, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad16 Jul 2029
“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.
Market16 Jul 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rampla Juniors is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Gabriel Díaz 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.
Squad16 Jul 2029
Words at Rampla Juniors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jonathan Baeza 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.
Match14 Jul 2029
0‑1 to Colon, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Market16 Jul 2029
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Player ratings16 Jul 2029
Successful dribbles: 12. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 May 2029
Diego Romero has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rampla Juniors they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad14 May 2029
“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.
Squad14 May 2029
Diego Romero 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.
Squad14 May 2029
Words at Rampla Juniors training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jonathan Baeza 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.
Squad14 May 2029
The manager makes an example of Gabriel Díaz
“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.
Match12 May 2029
Cerro Largo left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match10 Feb 2029
No end in sight to Rampla Juniors's wait for a win
10 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Rampla Juniors has to find a result from somewhere.
Squad12 Feb 2029
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Rampla Juniors may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market12 Feb 2029
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Rampla Juniors is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad12 Feb 2029
Diego Romero 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 Rampla Juniors this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom12 Feb 2029
5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market12 Feb 2029
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Alvaro Martinez has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market12 Feb 2029
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Diego Acosta has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Market12 Feb 2029
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Agustin Pereira has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Squad12 Feb 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Sebastián Cal, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match5 Aug 2028
The run now stands at 9, and the questions being asked around Rampla Juniors are no longer polite ones.
Market7 Aug 2028
Diego Romero 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 Rampla Juniors can pretend not to have heard.
Market7 Aug 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Rampla Juniors they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Julián Russo: 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.” Rampla Juniors have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Paulo da Costa is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Sebastián Cal 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.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Diego Romero 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 ratings7 Aug 2028
Marked 8.20 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
87% of the income goes out in wages at Rampla Juniors
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.