The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“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.
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.
Marked 8.72 — 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.
15 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.
0‑6 to Almirante Brown, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
“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.
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.
13 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.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Gimnasia y Esgrima is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Facundo Maldonado 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.
Marked 8.40 — 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.
Whether it was the goalkeeper or the ten in front of him is the argument that will fill every conversation in town this week. 5 saves does not settle it either way.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Mauro Cachi 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.
Shots: 11. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
10 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.
“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.
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.
Maximiliano Casa 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.
19 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.
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Tomás Moretti: 3 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
“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.
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.
In brief
Player ratingsA defender's afternoon for Javier Uribe
“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.
Francisco Molina 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.
3 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Gimnasia y Esgrima could ask drops and the wages Milton Álvarez can ask rise.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Octavio Bianchi signs something — a contract at Gimnasia y Esgrima or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
11 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.
“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.
Francisco Molina 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 transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Tomás Moretti is a Gimnasia y Esgrima player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
The shirt still fits. Carlos Alberto Paz is back at Gimnasia y Esgrima, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.