Marked for Leonardo Ramírez
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad7 Jun 2027
36 days out for Ricardo Priori after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sacachispas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad7 Jun 2027
15 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sacachispas lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market7 Jun 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 The request is on a desk at Sacachispas, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 Jun 2027
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Match5 Jun 2027
The run at home goes on for Sacachispas
14 matches unbeaten here. Every visiting manager is asked about it in the week before, which is precisely why it keeps going.
Player ratings7 Jun 2027
Pablo Ortiz, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.63
A mark of 7.63 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Sacachispas have done the hard part with Chacarita Juniors, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Transfer targets7 Jun 2027
$240.0K on the table at Patronato. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Lautaro Torres and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 May 2027
44 days out for Ricardo Priori after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sacachispas will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad31 May 2027
24 days on the announcement, and a year of quiet, unwatched rehabilitation behind it. Sacachispas lose a player for a season; he loses something harder to name.
Market31 May 2027
Alan Abregú hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sacachispas can pretend not to have heard.
Squad31 May 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sacachispas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad31 May 2027
A move Enzo Cejas would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Enzo Cejas is living that version at Sacachispas, and it tends to show in the first month.
Match29 May 2027
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout31 May 2027
“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.
The dugout31 May 2027
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Juan Manuel Alonso left the room before anybody could ask which.
The dugout31 May 2027
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 May 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 51 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad24 May 2027
Leonardo Ramírez damages knee ligaments — 32 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 32 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.
Squad24 May 2027
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.
Match24 May 2027
Sacachispas are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 29 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market24 May 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 Sacachispas can pretend not to have heard.
Match22 May 2027
Sacachispas make home a hard place to visit
13 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Player ratings24 May 2027
Pablo Ortiz, 20, steals the show — 7.78
Marked 7.78 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
The dugout24 May 2027
Tiziano Rivero: 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.” Sacachispas have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad24 May 2027
Lautaro Torres 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad17 May 2027
A fracture rules Ricardo Priori out for 59 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sacachispas will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad17 May 2027
Leonardo Ramírez damages knee ligaments — 40 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 40 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 dugout17 May 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Sacachispas may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad17 May 2027
There were 7 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad17 May 2027
Lautaro Torres 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.
Match15 May 2027
Beaten 1‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Boardroom17 May 2027
Nobody left the Sacachispas dressing room in a hurry
The door stayed shut a long time after the final whistle. What was said in there is between them; whether it worked is between them and Saturday.
The dugout17 May 2027
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Juan Manuel Alonso after 1‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The dugout17 May 2027
Mario López 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 Mario López trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Sacachispas this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Lautaro Torres
“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.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Iván Arce 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Juan Manuel Núñez has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Andrés Álvarez is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Market10 Aug 2026
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Leonardo Ramírez 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 Sacachispas training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alan Visco 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.
Squad10 Aug 2026
14 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
The afternoon belonged to Alan Visco
A mark of 7.59, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.