Marked for Daniel Martínez
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings14 May 2035
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.40 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Player ratings14 May 2035
No sign of nerves from Daniel Silva at 21 — 7.60
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Daniel Silva did not need any: 7.60, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad14 May 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mitre this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad14 May 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alexis Viera, and the manager let it.
Squad14 May 2035
“The easiest signature of my career.” Daniel Martínez and Mitre agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad14 May 2035
Rodrigo Rocha 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.
Match12 May 2035
It needed José María Ingratti to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Estudiantes, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Market14 May 2035
4 months remain and no agreement is close. Every week without a signature costs Mitre money.
Boardroom14 May 2035
The Mitre production line keeps running
75 graduates out of an academy now rated 4 out of 20. Clubs this size survive on exactly that, and the town knows every name.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces29 Jan 2035
Anger at Mitre spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Market29 Jan 2035
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until José María Ingratti signs something — a contract at Mitre or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Squad29 Jan 2035
Hernán Ojeda knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Mitre, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market22 Jan 2035
“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 Mitre, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad22 Jan 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mitre this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Jan 2035
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Daniel Martínez, and the manager let it.
Squad22 Jan 2035
Nobody at Mitre will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad22 Jan 2035
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Juan Martín López trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market22 Jan 2035
The clock does Juan Martín López’s negotiating for him
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee Mitre could ask drops and the wages Juan Martín López can ask rise.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces4 Dec 2034
The mood at Mitre 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.
Boardroom4 Dec 2034
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Juan Carlos Sánchez has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom4 Dec 2034
Crisis meeting at Mitre
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market4 Dec 2034
Hernán Ojeda 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 Mitre can pretend not to have heard.
Squad4 Dec 2034
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Mitre this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad4 Dec 2034
The manager makes an example of Daniel Martínez
“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.
Market4 Dec 2034
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with José María Ingratti’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Boardroom4 Dec 2034
$440.1K taken back off the Mitre table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
Squad4 Dec 2034
Every squad has men who were signed by a particular manager and men who were merely inherited. José Luis Morales is in the first group, and the man who wanted him here is no longer in the building.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match29 Jul 2034
Mitre taken apart
0‑3 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.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Nahuel Vives 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 Mitre this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match29 Jul 2034
3 matches without a goal for Mitre
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad31 Jul 2034
Juan Manuel Díaz 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.
Boardroom31 Jul 2034
120% of the income goes out in wages at Mitre
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.
Squad31 Jul 2034
“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.
Boardroom31 Jul 2034
Inquest at Mitre
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad31 Jul 2034
The medical room confirms 14 days on the sidelines for Daniel Martínez, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Player ratings31 Jul 2034
Successful dribbles: 13. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.