Marked for Facundo Blanco
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad11 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 15 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Vittorio Fenocchio is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Pedro Durante 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 dugout11 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Iván Bifiguer, and the manager let it.
Squad11 Jan 2027
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Sportivo Italiano know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad4 Jan 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Lucas Fantino
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sportivo Italiano lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 22 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Sportivo Italiano may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad4 Jan 2027
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Sportivo Italiano have had the benefit of it.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Lionel Laborda 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 targets4 Jan 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout4 Jan 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andrés Macea, and the manager let it.
Market4 Jan 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Alexander Zurita’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Market4 Jan 2027
A season-long audition: Colón still own him, but the shirt and the minutes are Sportivo Italiano's to give. A loan is a bet both clubs believe they are winning.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad28 Dec 2026
Lucas Fantino damages knee ligaments — 24 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 24 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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
30 days out for Facundo Blanco after a fracture
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Sportivo Italiano will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
Market28 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Lionel Laborda 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.
Transfer targets28 Dec 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom28 Dec 2026
Every club 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 it has been tried.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Sportivo Italiano training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Iván Bifiguer 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.
Market28 Dec 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Marcelo Pappano has his answer from Sportivo Italiano; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
“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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Dec 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Lucas Fantino
33 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Sportivo Italiano lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Squad21 Dec 2026
A fracture rules Facundo Blanco out for 37 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Sportivo Italiano will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad21 Dec 2026
An individual honour is a strange thing in a team game, and the best of them are never argued with. He has had the sort of year that ends with his name being read out, and Sportivo Italiano have had the benefit of it.
Transfer targets21 Dec 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: Gimnasia y Esgrima keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Market21 Dec 2026
Vélez pay $140.0K, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Transfer targets21 Dec 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Liniers have kept their man, and Sportivo Italiano go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Guillermo Ortiz
“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.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Iván Bifiguer 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.
Transfer targets21 Dec 2026
A loan move for Jerónimo Buosi is in the works
Sportivo Italiano have made the call to Colón. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
A brace, and Marcos Landaburu takes the afternoon — 9.17
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Marcos Landaburu provided it, and the 9.17 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Sportivo Italiano can pretend not to have heard.
Match12 Sep 2026
5 games now with at least two against. The back line has been rearranged, the goalkeeper has been backed publicly, and the goals keep going in anyway.
Market14 Sep 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Daniel Herrera 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.
Market14 Sep 2026
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Facundo Blanco 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
Level with 85 minutes on the clock, after an afternoon Sportivo Italiano had all but put away. Fénix will call it a point earned; the home dressing room will call it two given away, and both of them are right.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Andrés Macea 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
15 new faces, and Sportivo Italiano are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Match12 Sep 2026
It needed Marcos Landaburu to find the net to bring anything home at all: 2‑2 against Fénix, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
In brief
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Squad
Lucas Fantino falls out with a teammate over standards
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The dugout
The manager’s verdict
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The dugout
The manager makes an example of Gonzalo Yordan