Marked for Sergio Arce
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
The terraces4 Jun 2029
Anger at Defensores 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.
Market4 Jun 2029
Only the photograph left for Luciano Correa
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Luciano Correa will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Defensores the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom4 Jun 2029
The scrutiny sharpens at Defensores
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Defensores is running low.
Market4 Jun 2029
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad4 Jun 2029
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Match2 Jun 2029
The wait goes on for Defensores
5 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Market4 Jun 2029
“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 Jun 2029
Nicolás Nocetti 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.
Match4 Jun 2029
Halfway: Defensores sit in position 17
13 points at the turn. The first half of a season is a promise; the second is a bill, and the town is about to find out which of the two this one was.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market11 Sep 2028
“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 The request is on a desk at Defensores, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
This is not rotation. Enzo González has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Defensores is pretending otherwise.
Squad11 Sep 2028
Nicolás Nocetti 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.
Loan watch11 Sep 2028
The goals keep arriving from Matías Gómez’s exile
16 goals in 21 games at Shakhter — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Defensores updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
Market11 Sep 2028
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Defensores, another week without a signature from Francisco Tcherkaski.
The dugout11 Sep 2028
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Looking ahead11 Sep 2028
A test against the best for Defensores
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Brown de Adrogué.
Looking ahead11 Sep 2028
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Brown de Adrogué in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Market11 Sep 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Patricio Moyano’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market17 Jul 2028
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Gimnasia La Plata waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Defensores is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Market17 Jul 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.
Market17 Jul 2028
The bid was some way short and Defensores did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
The dugout17 Jul 2028
Sergio Arce: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Defensores have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The dugout17 Jul 2028
This is not rotation. Bautista González has not been in the manager's plans for some time, and nobody at Defensores is pretending otherwise.
Squad17 Jul 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 Defensores this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Jul 2028
200 games in these colours. Service of that kind gets rarer every season, and the crowd knows it.
Squad17 Jul 2028
25 shut-outs in 111 appearances. A keeper’s career is counted in games where nothing happened, and none of it happened by accident.
Loan watch17 Jul 2028
17 appearances away from home and 11 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match15 Nov 2027
34 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Market15 Nov 2027
“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.
Squad15 Nov 2027
Ian Pérez 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.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Juan de Tomaso, and the manager let it.
Market15 Nov 2027
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Defensores know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad15 Nov 2027
The table is being checked before the results are in, which is always the tell. Nobody at Defensores says the word and every senior player in the building is thinking it.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
Nicolás Vaquer knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Nicolás Vaquer trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
The dugout15 Nov 2027
The manager plants his flag on Ian Pérez
“Judge me on him.” Managers do not say that kind of thing by accident — it moves the pressure from Ian Pérez’s shoulders onto his own, and both of them know it.
Squad15 Nov 2027
The penny has dropped for Sergio Arce
He looks like a man who lives here now rather than one who is working here. It took most of a season, and at Defensores the difference is visible from the back of the stand.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Roberto Escobar has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Defensores can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Market6 Sep 2027
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Defensores is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market6 Sep 2027
“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 Defensores, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad6 Sep 2027
Nicolás Nocetti and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad6 Sep 2027
A row about effort at Defensores
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Joaquín Ardaiz was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout6 Sep 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Ezequiel Aguirre, and the manager let it.
Market6 Sep 2027
Jaan Sööt is 20, and Defensores have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Market6 Sep 2027
Sergio Arce is 17, and Defensores have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad6 Sep 2027
A place in the month's best eleven for Ian Pérez
Four or five weekends of consistency, judged against everybody in the division doing his job. Ian Pérez has come out of that comparison in the side, and Defensores have had the benefit of every one of those afternoons.