Marked for Duncan Onyango
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces3 Sep 2029
Anger at Almagro 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.
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 The request is on a desk at Almagro, and it is not being withdrawn.
The dugout3 Sep 2029
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad3 Sep 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 Almagro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match1 Sep 2029
Beaten 1‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout3 Sep 2029
“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.
The dugout3 Sep 2029
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 1‑2, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
Squad3 Sep 2029
Four or five weekends of consistency, measured against everybody else in the division. A quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
Market3 Sep 2029
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Enzo Silcan’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Mar 2029
Enzo Martínez damages knee ligaments — 31 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 31 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.
Squad5 Mar 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 Almagro this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Gino Barbieri 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.
Match3 Mar 2029
No time for Arsenal to settle
The goal that put Arsenal ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Almagro equalised, 1 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Market5 Mar 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.
Squad5 Mar 2029
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at Almagro can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
The dugout5 Mar 2029
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.
Player ratings5 Mar 2029
7.49, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Almagro had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Match3 Mar 2029
It needed Nicolás Calero to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Arsenal, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market8 Jan 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 Almagro can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Jan 2029
54 days out for Mateo Luna after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Almagro will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Squad8 Jan 2029
A falling-out at Almagro
Gino Barbieri and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets8 Jan 2029
$29.0K was the most the club would pay and San Martín were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Squad8 Jan 2029
25 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout8 Jan 2029
Enzo Russo 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.
Squad8 Jan 2029
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Duncan Onyango commits to Almagro for another 3 years.
Market8 Jan 2029
The name of Enzo Martínez keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Almagro say nothing, which says plenty.
Market8 Jan 2029
7 months left and the two sides are nowhere near each other. Every week this drags on takes money off what Almagro could get for him.
In brief
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Market
Chapa leaves for nothing
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Match
Mid-table, and Almagro know it
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market1 Jan 2029
$13.4M from Banfield for Joel Orlando. Money is money, but the dressing room has lost the man it looked to.
Market1 Jan 2029
Claudio Salto 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 Almagro can pretend not to have heard.
Squad1 Jan 2029
61 days out for Mateo Luna after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Almagro will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The terraces1 Jan 2029
Almagro sell a favourite for $13.4M
The accountants will call it good business and they will be right, which is not the point anybody outside the boardroom is making. Joel Orlando was one of the reasons people came, and $13.4M does not replace that by itself.
Squad1 Jan 2029
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Almagro will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Words exchanged at Almagro
Gino Barbieri 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.
Transfer targets1 Jan 2029
Almagro have gone to San Martín with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The dugout1 Jan 2029
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Nicolás Calero, and the manager let it.
Squad1 Jan 2029
Mateo Cirigliano 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.