The Nacional Sentinel
Squad24 Nov 2031
Alexander Machado damages knee ligaments — 85 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 85 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.
Match24 Nov 2031
Nacional are in among the leaders
Position 2 and 68 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market24 Nov 2031
Only the photograph left for Juan Cruz Franzoni
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Juan Cruz Franzoni will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Nacional the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad24 Nov 2031
Tempers go at Nacional
Alexander Machado 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.
Squad24 Nov 2031
Facundo Jimenez signs on for more
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Facundo Jimenez and Nacional agree another 4 years.
Market24 Nov 2031
Agustín Álvarez Wallace has his eye on Europe
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Nacional can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
Squad24 Nov 2031
Fernando Mimbacas 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 dugout24 Nov 2031
Alexander Machado has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Nacional will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
The dugout24 Nov 2031
Nahuel Olmedo 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.
In brief
- Market Adriano Freitas runs his contract down
- The dugout Ramiro Luna knocks on the manager's door
- The dugout Lisandro González has been promised minutes