Marked for Marcelo Gonzalez
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad14 Aug 2028
Marcelo Gonzalez damages knee ligaments — 17 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 17 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match14 Aug 2028
Full time on the season at Oriental
Position 1 on 47 points. Every season is a story and this is the last line of it, and now the club has three months to decide what the next one is about.
Match12 Aug 2028
The 89th minute, half the ground already edging towards the exits, and Renato Alexandrino decided nobody was going anywhere. Deportivo Maldonado had no time left to answer.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Words exchanged at Oriental
Enzo Vlaeminch 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.
Match12 Aug 2028
Hard to beat is not the same as winning, but 6 matches without defeat is a foundation Oriental did not have in the autumn.
Squad14 Aug 2028
Words at Oriental training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Nahuel Soria 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.
Match12 Aug 2028
It finished 1‑0, and it was Renato Alexandrino’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Oriental.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings14 Aug 2028
Marked 7.76. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
In brief
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Squad
11 new faces, and Oriental are still learning each other
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The dugout
The team sheet said everything about Gabriel Albín
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Aug 2028
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Oriental lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Transfer targets7 Aug 2028
No thanks: Rafael Hornos rejects the move
Oriental had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Liverpool Montevideo, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Enzo Vlaeminch 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
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Kauê Silva and Oriental agree another 3 years.
Squad7 Aug 2028
Nahuel Soria 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.
Boardroom7 Aug 2028
142% of the income goes out in wages at Oriental
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.
The dugout7 Aug 2028
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Nicolás Guirin will call it something else in private.
Player ratings7 Aug 2028
Marked 7.92 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Oriental had the best player on the pitch.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Jul 2028
31 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Oriental lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market31 Jul 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.
Transfer targets31 Jul 2028
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Defensor Sporting is saying, and nobody at Oriental is enjoying the guessing.
Squad31 Jul 2028
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nahuel Soria and Oriental agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad31 Jul 2028
Words exchanged at Oriental
Emiliano Bermúdez 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.
Player ratings31 Jul 2028
Successful dribbles: 20. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad31 Jul 2028
13 goals and a season average of 7.22. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Match29 Jul 2028
Level with 97 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Oriental had all but put away. Cerrito will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Match29 Jul 2028
It needed Nahuel Soria to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Cerrito, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.