Marked for Sergio Vidal
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad13 Mar 2028
68 days out for Manuel Guanini after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Gimnasia y Tiro will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Match8 Mar 2028
Deportivo Riestra ended it 0‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Two goals and a mark of 8.68 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market13 Mar 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 The request is on a desk at Gimnasia y Tiro, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout13 Mar 2028
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Joaquín Papaleo, and the manager let it.
Player ratings13 Mar 2028
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
The dugout13 Mar 2028
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 2‑3 defeat, delivered by Sergio Varela to a room that had heard them before.
The dugout13 Mar 2028
Felipe Karabulut has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Gimnasia y Tiro 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces24 Jan 2028
The mood at Gimnasia y Tiro has turned into something else
Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Matías Birge breaks a bone — 104 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 104 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match24 Jan 2028
Every point is an argument now for Gimnasia y Tiro
Position 16 and 32 points, and the table gets read bottom-up in this part of town. The calendar has stopped being a schedule and started being a countdown.
Market24 Jan 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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
Manuel Guanini 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.
Squad24 Jan 2028
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” José González and Gimnasia y Tiro agree another 1 years.
The dugout24 Jan 2028
It is not much of a headline and it is the reason players believe the next promise. Gimnasia y Tiro told Benicio Ferreyra something would happen and then it happened, which in this industry passes for remarkable.
The dugout24 Jan 2028
Juan Galetto 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 Juan Galetto trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market24 Jan 2028
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Gimnasia y Tiro know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 Jan 2028
A fracture rules Matías Birge out for 111 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Gimnasia y Tiro will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom17 Jan 2028
Pressure builds in the Gimnasia y Tiro boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market17 Jan 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 Gimnasia y Tiro, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market17 Jan 2028
He signed expecting a bigger stage than the one he found. It has not taken long, and it has not taken the dressing room long to notice either.
Market17 Jan 2028
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
The dugout17 Jan 2028
Joaquín Papaleo asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
Squad17 Jan 2028
No place for Juan Martinez in the new shape
He is not being dropped. There is simply nowhere in the formation Gimnasia y Tiro are playing to put a man who does what he does, which is a harder thing to be told than any team sheet.
Market17 Jan 2028
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Joaquín Papaleo’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout17 Jan 2028
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Carlos Millalonco has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad29 Nov 2027
Nicolás Contín damages knee ligaments — 46 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 46 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.
The terraces29 Nov 2027
Anger at Gimnasia y Tiro 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.
Match29 Nov 2027
Position 16, 32 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Market29 Nov 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 Gimnasia y Tiro, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Manuel Guanini was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Squad29 Nov 2027
Felipe Karabulut and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout29 Nov 2027
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Joaquín Papaleo trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Market29 Nov 2027
The name of Tiago Banega keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Gimnasia y Tiro say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout29 Nov 2027
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Carlos Millalonco has written the date down.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market16 Aug 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Tiro can pretend not to have heard.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Manuel Guanini 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.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
“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.
Match14 Aug 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Boardroom16 Aug 2027
Wages eat 122% of everything Gimnasia y Tiro earn
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Looking ahead16 Aug 2027
Everything rides on Alvarado
Both clubs in the mire, one fixture between them, and a ground that will be louder and more frightened than at any point in the season. Gimnasia y Tiro know what is at stake and so does everybody in the away end.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Manuel Guanini's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market26 Jul 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Gimnasia y Tiro can pretend not to have heard.
Match24 Jul 2027
The run now stands at 6, and the questions being asked around Gimnasia y Tiro are no longer polite ones.
Boardroom26 Jul 2027
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 7 arrived, 12 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Squad26 Jul 2027
The medical room confirms 44 days on the sidelines for Fabricio Rojas, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad26 Jul 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Manuel Guanini was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout26 Jul 2027
“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.
Transfer targets26 Jul 2027
The clock did what Central Norte would not, and ended it. Supporters who watched the countdown will spend the next window doing it again.
Market26 Jul 2027
He signed expecting a bigger stage than the one he found. It has not taken long, and it has not taken the dressing room long to notice either.