15 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.
18 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Güemes lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Güemes can pretend not to have heard.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Güemes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
Squad19 May 2031
Words at Güemes training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Roque Maisterra 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.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Güemes can pretend not to have heard.
Dionel Ansaldo 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.
Squad31 Mar 2031
Sifiso Lorch 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.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Güemes know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Güemes will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Güemes. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.
Güemes interviewed the field and appointed the corridor: Interim Coach keeps the job he had been doing in all but title. Sometimes the safest pair of hands is the one already holding the wheel.
“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 Güemes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Roque Maisterra was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“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 dugout24 Feb 2031
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 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Interim Coach to a room that had heard them before.
Alejandro Giraldo 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.
The manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
“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 Güemes, and it is not being withdrawn.
Dionel Ansaldo 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.
9 days since the seat came open, a list of names doing the rounds, and nobody has signed anything. Every week this drags on the shortlist gets shorter.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sifiso Lorch was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Güemes, another week without a signature from Nil Cano.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Gianluca Pugliese signs something — a contract at Güemes or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Güemes will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Güemes this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
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 manager has a list and the board has a condition attached to it. That is not a crisis — half of football works this way — but it decides which of the two of them gets his way in August.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Güemes know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I respect the manager and I am not going to sit here and pretend I am happy.” It is the most common sentence in football and it has never once been the end of a story.
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.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 124 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Güemes can pretend not to have heard.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Sifiso Lorch was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
In brief
The dugoutThe manager makes an example of Nil Cano