Marked for Facundo Ponce
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match24 Apr 2030
The small margins put Quilmes out
Out, 0‑1 to Barracas Central, and the long argument about which of the small moments decided it. The league is all there is now, and everybody knows it.
The terraces29 Apr 2030
The ground has had enough
“We travel everywhere and we get this.” 8 of the 25 senior players heard it walking off, and the ones who did not hear it were not playing.
Market29 Apr 2030
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Quilmes can pretend not to have heard.
Market29 Apr 2030
Lucas Romeo has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Quilmes they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Player ratings29 Apr 2030
A first appearance Facundo Ponce will want to forget — 5.26
Everybody's debut is one of two stories and this was the other one. 5.26, and the only consolation available is that nobody's career has ever been decided by ninety minutes in a shirt he had just been given.
Player ratings29 Apr 2030
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad29 Apr 2030
“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.
Player ratings29 Apr 2030
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.
Squad29 Apr 2030
6 clean sheets and counting. Strikers leave this ground muttering his name, which is exactly how a goalkeeper measures a good season.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market5 Nov 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.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Words at Quilmes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Luciano Recalde 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.
Squad5 Nov 2029
Julián Gurzi 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.
Squad5 Nov 2029
47 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Boardroom5 Nov 2029
The numbers do not look good at Quilmes
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad5 Nov 2029
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Quilmes, and both men came out saying it was fine.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market1 Oct 2029
“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 Quilmes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad1 Oct 2029
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Quilmes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Oct 2029
The manager makes an example of Facundo Ponce
“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.
Squad1 Oct 2029
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market1 Oct 2029
The José Barreto talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Quilmes know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad1 Oct 2029
Mirko Juárez 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 Mirko Juárez trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market3 Sep 2029
“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 Quilmes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 Sep 2029
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Luciano Recalde and Quilmes agree another 2 years.
Squad3 Sep 2029
Luciano Recalde 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 terraces3 Sep 2029
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Jhovani Ocampos has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad3 Sep 2029
Lucas Romeo 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 Sep 2029
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Luciano Recalde will call it something else in private.
Match1 Sep 2029
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Gimnasia y Tiro will be the happier side with the point.
Market3 Sep 2029
The José Barreto talk will not go away
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Quilmes know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Market3 Sep 2029
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match4 Aug 2029
José Barreto had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Patronato were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Squad6 Aug 2029
José Barreto takes the match ball home
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Market6 Aug 2029
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Quilmes can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings6 Aug 2029
A performance of 9.04 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Agustín Gauna is the division's best young player this month
At 21 he has spent a month being better than everybody his age in the league, which is a different and harder thing than one good afternoon. Quilmes will try very hard not to make too much of it.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Mirko Juárez gets it from the manager
“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.
Match4 Aug 2029
A 3‑3 draw with Patronato leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Squad6 Aug 2029
Luca Proda in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Quilmes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market6 Aug 2029
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Santiago Luna has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Quilmes.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market30 Jul 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.
Squad30 Jul 2029
Julián Gurzi 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.
Boardroom30 Jul 2029
86% of the income goes out in wages at Quilmes
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.
Match28 Jul 2029
It needed José Barreto to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Alvarado, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
Squad30 Jul 2029
“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.
Squad30 Jul 2029
The manager makes an example of Facundo Ponce
“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.
Squad30 Jul 2029
When it matters, Gian Gómez plays
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market30 Jul 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Martín Vallejos’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings30 Jul 2029
Successful dribbles: 8. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market18 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.
The terraces18 Jun 2029
Quilmes sell a favourite for $1.7M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Gabriel Vázquez was one of the reasons people came, and $1.7M does not replace that by itself.
Market18 Jun 2029
Gornik Zabrze paid $1.7M and Quilmes took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Market18 Jun 2029
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Quilmes have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Match16 Jun 2029
It finished 1‑0, and it was Luciano Cuella’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Quilmes.
Player ratings18 Jun 2029
Marked 8.26 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings18 Jun 2029
17 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad18 Jun 2029
Luca Proda 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.
Market18 Jun 2029
Facundo Ponce is 19, and Quilmes 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.