Marked for Marcelo Rivera
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom18 Dec 2028
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Match18 Dec 2028
16 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 16 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad18 Dec 2028
Francisco Décima and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets18 Dec 2028
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Wanderers have kept their man, and Deportivo Colonia go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Boardroom18 Dec 2028
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
Transfer targets18 Dec 2028
Deportivo Colonia have made the call to Progreso. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
The dugout18 Dec 2028
Lucas Zubiaguirre has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Deportivo Colonia 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.
Market18 Dec 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Deportivo Colonia, another week without a signature from Bautista da Silveira.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad11 Dec 2028
A fracture rules Marcelo Rivera out for 23 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Deportivo Colonia will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market11 Dec 2028
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Deportivo Colonia people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Squad11 Dec 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 Deportivo Colonia this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets11 Dec 2028
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom11 Dec 2028
The borrowing is past what the bank agreed, which is the line where a debt stops being how football is financed and starts being a problem. Every phone-in in this town will quote the figure for the next five years.
The dugout11 Dec 2028
Fabio Vázquez has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Deportivo Colonia 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.
Market11 Dec 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Deportivo Colonia, another week without a signature from Thiago Amaral.
The dugout11 Dec 2028
Agustín Casco 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 Deportivo Colonia, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom4 Dec 2028
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market4 Dec 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.
Squad4 Dec 2028
30 days out for Marcelo Rivera after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Deportivo Colonia will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Boardroom4 Dec 2028
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.
Squad4 Dec 2028
Francisco Décima 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.
Boardroom4 Dec 2028
The shortfall was covered from upstairs again. Supporters are entitled to be relieved and entitled to ask what happens the month it is not, and both feelings usually arrive together.
Boardroom4 Dec 2028
155% of the income goes out in wages at Deportivo Colonia
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.
Market4 Dec 2028
The name of Rodrigo Santos has come up in conversations Deportivo Colonia were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad4 Dec 2028
The medical room confirms 47 days on the sidelines for Felipe Fuentes, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.