A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Atenas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atenas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The standards have slipped, and in a building where everybody watches everybody it has not gone unremarked. This is how a player loses a place before he loses one.
42 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Atenas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Brian González 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.
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.
49 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Atenas lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Atenas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Atenas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 95 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.
Brian González 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Nicolas Martinez 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.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Rafael Gonzalez 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Matías Núñez was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Danilo Lerda damages knee ligaments — 103 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 103 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.
Brian González 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.
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.
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Agustín Navarro was one of the reasons people came, and $760.0K does not replace that by itself.
Brian González 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.
The shape wanted a different profile against this opponent, which is a real football answer and no comfort at all to the man it is about. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The offer from Inter for Matías Núñez was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Facundo Briñón 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.
Chances created: 16. Nothing on the scoresheet and everything in the match: the pass before the pass, over and over, until the defence stopped guessing right.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Thiago Rivera 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.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Facundo Sanchez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Thiago Rossi 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.