The Fénix Post
Squad3 Feb 2031
A knee injury of the worst kind for Sebastián Salazar
70 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Fénix lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market3 Feb 2031
Stade Brestois come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Fénix did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market3 Feb 2031
Santino Santillán puts it in writing
“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 The request is on a desk at Fénix, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market3 Feb 2031
Only the photograph left for Santino Santillán
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Santino Santillán will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Fénix the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom3 Feb 2031
5 academy graduates step up at Fénix
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
Squad3 Feb 2031
Tempers go at Fénix
Ramiro Carrera 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.
Squad3 Feb 2031
A row about effort at Fénix
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Enzo Gariglio was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout3 Feb 2031
The manager makes an example of Sebastián Montero
“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.
Market3 Feb 2031
One of our own: Valentín Bruno joins the Fénix first team
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Valentín Bruno is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
In brief
- Match Fénix come up short against UAI Urquiza
- Boardroom A promise the Fénix board did not keep
- The dugout The manager’s verdict