Marked for Daniel Colombo
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match9 Sep 2028
No mercy from Maipú
San Miguel will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Maipú were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Market11 Sep 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.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.41, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Tempers go at Maipú
Lisandro Cabrera 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.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Words at Maipú training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Matías Viguet 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.
Player ratings11 Sep 2028
Marked 8.18 — 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.
Boardroom11 Sep 2028
The numbers do not look good at Maipú
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad11 Sep 2028
The division's best last weekend was a Maipú man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Matías Viguet was the best thing in any of them.
Squad11 Sep 2028
The manager makes an example of Daniel Colombo
“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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Aug 2028
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Maipú may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Player ratings21 Aug 2028
A brace, and Matías Viguet takes the afternoon — 8.23
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Matías Viguet provided it, and the 8.23 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market21 Aug 2028
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Maipú can pretend not to have heard.
The terraces21 Aug 2028
Supporters turn on the $1.3M sale of Nahuel Galardi
He is going to Dinamo Tbilisi, the club has $1.3M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Market21 Aug 2028
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Joaquín Bassani will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Maipú the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Aug 2028
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Maipú this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad21 Aug 2028
Matías Viguet 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.
Match19 Aug 2028
Three points for Maipú, 2‑0 the final word against Alvarado in a contest settled by the finer margins.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 28. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at River Plate training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Rico Henry 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.
Boardroom8 Feb 2027
3 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.
Market8 Feb 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Daniel Colombo 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.
Market8 Feb 2027
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Benicio Bruno is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market8 Feb 2027
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Valentino Otero 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.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tomás Galván and River Plate agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad8 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at River Plate this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
7.42, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. River Plate had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.