The words a physio says slowly. 16 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
“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 The request is on a desk at Excursionistas, and it is not being withdrawn.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Excursionistas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Gabriel Tellas was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Everybody at Excursionistas saw it before anybody said it, which is how this always goes. At 36 the decline is real and measurable — 3 points — and the only question left is how the club handles somebody it owes a great deal to.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Excursionistas, and both men came out saying it was fine.
The words a physio says slowly. 24 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 9 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Every club 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 it has been tried.
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.09, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Mateo Quiroga kept it short after the 2‑0 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
32 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Excursionistas lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Agustín Heredia and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Alejandro Ávalos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 1‑2 defeat, delivered by Mateo Quiroga to a room that had heard them before.
Successful dribbles: 14. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The manager wanted a different profile for this opponent, which is a real football reason and no consolation. He did nothing wrong and he did not play.
The words a physio says slowly. 39 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
7 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.
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.
Behind, and beaten by any honest reading, until minute 88. Villa San Carlos had the points in their pocket and a corner of the ground still believed, which is generally when it happens.
1‑1, and both dressing rooms will call it two points lost. A draw that asked plenty of questions and answered none of them.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Mateo Quiroga was not hiding it after 1‑1, and nobody in the Excursionistas dressing room was either.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against UAI Urquiza in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Miguel López
Agustín Heredia and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Iván Peralta is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Carlos Iglesias is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Felipe Domínguez 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.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Maximiliano Moretti 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Words at Excursionistas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Gabriel Tellas 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.
The board was up, the win was priced in, and then Argentino de Merlo scored. There is no worse minute to concede in and the ground emptied in the silence that follows one.
He is doing things on a Saturday afternoon that nobody around him can answer, which is flattering for about one season and a problem after that. Excursionistas will not keep him by pretending otherwise.