The mood at Almagro has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Words at Almagro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gino Barbieri 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.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aldo Rimbelitti trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Franco Bustamante signs something — a contract at Almagro or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
36 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Almagro lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Almagro will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Emiliano 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.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gonzalo Asis was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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.
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 Francisco Marco is on it.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Almagro will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mattia Ciancaglini will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Almagro the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Almagro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad24 May 2027
Words at Almagro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gino Barbieri 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.
He is 20 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Marked 8.21 — 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.
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Almagro will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
8 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Squad17 May 2027
Gino Barbieri 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.
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout17 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Daniel Marino to a room that had heard them before.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Emiliano González signs something — a contract at Almagro or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 37 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.92 for the rest of it.
Gino Barbieri 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.
“There are things I liked and things we will be doing on Tuesday until they are right.” 1‑1, and a manager who had already decided what Tuesday looked like.
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Gino Barbieri 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.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Words at Almagro training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gonzalo Asis 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.